


The Shadow and the Soul

by Elysium (Elysium66)



Series: Prey [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Angst, F/M, Magical Artifacts, Ministry of Magic, Murder, Mystery, POV Hermione Granger, Partnership, Post-War, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2018-04-04 19:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4150782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elysium66/pseuds/Elysium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione's world is turned upside down once again when, while investigating a series of mysterious pure-blood killings across the country, the one man she never expected to see again, walks back into her life. Somehow he is involved, and she must decide whether she can trust him enough to unravel a mystery generations in the making.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the sequel to Prey, which I've recently finished posting on this archive (though it's been complete for about five years now). Enjoy!

**_Outside the village of Charroux, France 1977_**  
  
   
  


She was six when the bad man came to their house. Hidden in the field of poesies. Red and pink. She was playing high and seek with her brother, deep in the tall strands of grass and flowers. She ducked low and held her breath, giddy at their game. She had to be very quiet, Maman had told her. Quieter than the wind. The little girl was very good at this game. She ducked lower still, crouching amid the scented blooms. She wasn’t tall like her brother, who had to lie flat to avoid being seen.

She peered through the thicket, looking for Maman, but she had not yet come to look for them. She never took this long before emerging, her sing-song voice calling out their names as she sought them out. The girl’s gaze was alert as she waited, watching the front door, breathless with excitement. She saw the flash of light then, blinding as it bounced against the windows from inside the house. It was different to anything she had seen before.  _Magic_.

Curious, she crawled through the stems, sneaking toward the house. Maman said they weren’t allowed to do magic. It was their special secret, and no one was to know. Not anyone from the village. Not even the girl’s friends.

Creeping along the fringe of the grass and up by the hedges, she drew closer to the small house before the hill. The girl cast her gaze back to look for her brother, but his gleaming head could not be seen amid the sun and the sea of poesies.

She remembered the stillness most of all, like a tingle that started in her tummy and spread to her toes. Even at six, with eyes wide and full of wonder, somehow she had known. When she finally peered through the thick pane of glass and into the cottage house, she saw his face. Not unlike her own, except that he was older. Older even than Maman.

There was another man there with him, his own pale eyes wide and scared. She was scared too. The bad man held a wand between his fingers, but his eyes did not stray from the curled up figures on the floor before him. Her Maman and Papa were sleeping.

He turned to the younger man and whispered strange words she could not understand. They moved their watchful eyes toward the window, but she ducked quickly out of sight. Then she felt arms wrap around her body and tug her further down. Her brother, wide eyed, held her gaze and pressed a finger to his lips, before ushering her back into the grass.

Further and further they went this time, until the red and green grew thick around her with the smell of spring. They finally stopped and lay down on their backs, her brother’s hand firmly gripping hers.

She didn’t want to play anymore; she wanted to wake Maman and slip into the warmth of her arms. But she did as she was told, and gazed up at the shifting clouds moving across the sun. The light was blinding to her eyes, but after a while she didn’t feel the sharpness anymore. She felt numb as the sky darkened to dusky purple, and for a long time after that.


	2. The Siren's Call

That morning began atrociously: a cacophony of events that led to precisely this moment. The voices droned, endlessly it seemed, to the young woman sitting in the courtroom. She ought to have been furiously taking notes about the trial, but her mind was elsewhere. The Ministry was in chaos this morning, after the discovery of yet another body. The culprit, about whom they knew very little, was still at large, and so the majority of the research team had been pulled from their other cases to work on what was the worst case of serial murders since the close of the War.

Hermione Granger, as a Senior Researcher in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, was one such person. However, given this was the last day of the trial on a previous case, and her assistant had not shown up for work, she was stuck sitting on the uncomfortable stone seat instead, listening when she could have been doing far more constructive things. 

It was after lunchtime when she finally escaped from the courtrooms and back to her desk, presently piled high with files and heavy tomes. Frantic memos flew overhead, as she settled in her seat. It was going to be a long day.

Brushing her thick mane of curls from her face, she set about attacking one of the volumes in particular, her quill and parchment held aloft for note taking. This book was one of many archived in the annals of the Ministry Library, in a dark and dank room of volumes recording previous crimes throughout recorded history in England. Often one did not have to venture into that room for her line of work, as cases tended to be quite linear in magical crime. 

But this case presented some peculiarities that appeared to evade common knowledge. The victims, of which there were currently four – to their knowledge, in any case – all bore the same strange purple markings across their bodies. Otherwise, they were intact and appeared to have no cuts or abrasions, which usually signified the use of the  _Avada Kedavra_ curse. None of the Aurors or her fellow researchers had ever encountered anything of its like, but the idea of some new powerful method of torture and murder was alarming to say the least. They had not released details of the markings to the media in an effort to stave off panic, which hadn’t been seen for over five years. That there was a mass murderer in their midst was quite horrific enough.  

Just the night before, having chosen to stay back poring over the texts, Hermione had made a discovery, in one of the volumes, of similar crimes that had occurred in the mid-1950s. There were seven incidents, but no progress was ever made in uncovering the mystery, and the case had remained unsolved. Ordinarily, Hermione would have been quite surprised at such a large number of connected murders being so blatantly disregarded, but in this instance all of the victims had been half-blood or Muggle-born, which was not an uncommon occurrence in the times when blood purity was taken more seriously. More seriously than now, in any case, what with the downfall of Voldemort and a social movement towards collapsing all persecution of those without pure blood lineage. 

There had been nothing of note since that period, almost 50 years ago, and strangely the recent victims were all pure blood. Given the proliferation of mixed blood in recent decades, and the declining numbers of pure blood families, she did not believe that this was coincidental. 

What it suggested, however, was that this new perpetrator was someone else entirely, with a very different motive to his or her predecessors. There was just so much that they didn’t understand. Other than being pure blood, the murders seemed somewhat random. One had been a Ministry employee with the Department of International Magical Co-operation, one was the son of a convicted Death Eater, and two women in their mid-twenties, who appeared to have no connection to either the Ministry or former Death Eaters. 

Rubbing her neck, Hermione glanced at her watch, noting that it was by now after seven at night, and the department had finally started to thin out. She’d combed through the more recent history, double checking whether she had missed anything of note, but it was clear that whatever caused these deaths had passed out of knowledge until now. She would track back further to see if she could pinpoint when they began and if there were any details of value, but that was a task for the following day. Right now, she needed to get home and ease the slight headache forming behind her eyes. 

 

*

 

The wind whistled aggressively through the narrow cracks of the window, but Hermione found the sound strangely soothing. She was curled up on the worn couch in her sitting room, reading through a much loved book and sipping a restorative glass of elf-made wine. She didn’t usually drink mid-week, but the stress of the last two days had definitely taken its toll. 

Taking another sip, she flipped the page and continued reading, but then paused, her senses suddenly alert. Listening closely, she heard it again, a faint hum emanating from outside the sitting room. Her heart skipped a beat, before resuming an erratic rhythm, and her skin tingled with foreboding. She rose and inched toward the doorway and out into the hall. 

Yellow light filtered from the kitchen and lounge and met with an eerie faint blue glow, pooling out from under the study door. The humming was louder here. She hesitated, her mind buzzing with thoughts so fleeting she couldn’t seem to grasp them. Her hand shook as she finally turned the knob, knowing and dreading what she would find. Somehow after all this time, she had assumed this moment would never come.  

The room was dark but for the blue light creeping around the hinges of a locked drawer at her desk. Flicking on the switch, she found little comfort in the sudden blaze of light. She unlocked the drawer, less hesitantly this time, and sifted through the strange collection of items there, pausing only to pick up the large smooth pebble, sitting ominously at the back of the drawer. Laying it flat in her palm, she felt the vibrations run through her body and up her spine. The blue light was less obvious with the darkness gone, but its shimmer was still evident in the strange glow emanating from the stone. 

Staring at it in continued shock, she felt the air catch in her breath. Once, years ago, she had longed for this, craved to know things she shouldn’t. Now she couldn’t be sure what it meant, except that following through would mean opening up a can of worms she had long since closed, and locked in a secret dark place within.

The pebble was one of a set. Its companion – charmed to send a message to the one in Hermione’s hand, if the right words were uttered – belonged to a woman living in a small village in Wiltshire, located a short distance from the grand old manor house at the top of the hill.  _His_ home _._

And the only possible reason for that woman to be contacting her was because he had been seen. 

She felt completely immobile as she stared unseeingly at the stone. Her thoughts now adrift. Draco Malfoy. The boy, or man now, who had haunted her since the last time she saw him, and for a time before that. The man who was, by all accounts, supposed to be dead – or presumed so, at least, given his body was never actually recovered. That was five years ago, though it felt like an entirely different lifetime to Hermione.

Things had changed since then. She had changed, out of necessity, because the impact of her final year at Hogwarts and the close of the War had wrought a turmoil within her unlike anything else.  A silent battle with which she had struggled for the first three years since it all unravelled. Those three years had been torrid for her, passing in a blur of obsession, disbelief and hopelessness. Until, that is, she finally saw the light and moved on.

For a reason she was never fully able to define, even to herself, she never truly believed he died that night, despite all suggestions to the contrary. Perhaps it was the absence of closure, or the vivid colour of him in her memory, but he felt like a living breathing thing to her. And she had refused to let go, to leave the question unanswered. She spent those years searching for any signs of him, any whisper of activity that could verify her instincts. At the time Hermione had told herself if wasn’t out of some sense of misplaced sentimentality, but rather a visceral need to know, to solve the case.

During this phase she had visited Wiltshire, to the small village in the valley below Malfoy Manor. She’d felt him there, as she had many times before, like a whisper in her ear, his presence a constant in her mind. She questioned the locals, seeking nuggets of useful information, but few ever actually spoke to her. There had, by all accounts, always lingered a degree of fear and uncertainty of that family. This she found entirely understandable, given their coloured history. 

The one woman she did manage to speak to, who was not much older than herself, worked in the local pub, and had grown up in the village. She told stories of generations past, rumours of terrible things that happened in the big house on the hill. The woman, who clearly was intrigued by the family legacy, promised to contact Hermione should she ever see any strange activity there, and especially if anyone fitting Malfoy’s description should return. So Hermione had charmed the two pebbles, gifting one to the woman with the instruction to send her a message and stating she would come back and see her immediately. That was over three years ago, and she had heard nothing since. 

Only Narcissa Malfoy and her house elves occupied the property now, with Lucius in prison and Draco presumed dead. In the fallout of the War, following the incarceration of Lucius Malfoy, the property was searched thoroughly for any signs of his son. They found nothing, and Narcissa staunchly claimed not to know where her son was buried. 

The hum of the stone was a message, a call to action for Hermione, a possible answer to questions she had long since thought she would never have. It terrified her that even still, two years after she had packed away her research and consciously put him out of her mind, her immediate thought was to drop everything and go there. 

She looked at the faint blue of the stone, inhaled a ragged breath, and whispered the countercharm, watching as the life left the stone. She couldn’t go back there, not to that dark place of uncertainty and silent longing. No matter that the burning desire coursed through her like a living thing. He had disrupted her life, shaken her to the very core and dismantled every solid thing she had known and understood, had shaped her view of the world in an entirely new way, and only recently had she learned to live beyond that. She could not open that door again. No matter what the woman had to say.

It wasn’t important. It wasn’t for her to care, to bring back the anarchy and confusion of that year and of him. With a degree of resolve, Hermione dropped the stone back into the drawer and left the study. Yet even as she lay in bed that night, she could still feel the faint hum of its siren call like an echo through her bones.


	3. A Search for Answers

 Two days had passed since the eerie call of the stone ripped through the carefully cultivated serenity of her existence. That was two nights of restless turning in her bed, begging sleep to dissolve the endless stream of questions turning in her thoughts.  
  
She was late to work, unsurprisingly, as she’d had little sleep in the end. When she finally hurried from the atrium, up the elevator and into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement it seemed as though the chaos in her mind had manifested into reality. The office was abuzz with harried looking Aurors rushing about and memos soaring and swooping overhead.   
  
When she finally deposited her things at her desk she saw two memos waiting there. Upon lifting the flap on each, she noted requests for her presence in the Minister’s office, from both Harry and Kingsley Shacklebolt himself.   
  
She blew out a sigh and scanned the main room. Clearly there had been a new development. A slight throb formed behind her temple. It seemed the way of things that when one area of one’s life was thrown into disarray the pattern carried itself through all facets. Only this, the case she was working on, was very real indeed.  
  
When she finally knocked on the door and popped her head in, she noted an exhausted looking Harry, and an equally concerned Shacklebolt, standing over a series of papers.  
  
“Hermione, good. Come in,” Harry said, gesturing for her to join them.   
  
“Harry, Minister. Apologies, I was running late this morning. I saw your memos and came straight here.” She looked from one to the other, noting the shared look of strain.  
  
“There’s been another victim,” Shacklebolt said, his usually composed voice laced with weariness.  
  
She had feared as much. “Is there a connection?”  
  
“See for yourself…” Harry said, dropping a copy of  _The Daily Prophet_  in front of her. Splashed across the headlines was the title “Murder at Malfoy Manor” under which a photo of Narcissa Malfoy sat, her image gazing outwardly with evident distaste.   
  
Her stomach dropped as her eyes scanned the story. “I can’t believe it,” she finally murmured. Her thoughts ran rampant, constantly flashing back to the small white stone in her desk drawer and the summons of the other night. It had never occurred to her that it was all connected.  
  
“It was leaked to the press somehow – they were outside the gates when we got there.”  
  
She finally looked up from the paper to Harry. “Tell me everything.”  
  
“It happened two nights ago. We were only alerted because a close friend of Narcissa’s, one of the few she remained in touch with, contacted us early yesterday evening. The house elves don’t trust the Ministry, unsurprisingly I suppose, but they alerted her immediately. The witch was hysterical, said apparently two people entered the house and murdered Narcissa, though she didn’t know much more. In order to gain entry she had to convince the house elves to let us onto the property. To say they were reluctant would be an understatement.”  
  
“They’re loyal to the family, I suppose. What did you find?”  
  
“We were there all night. The house elves wouldn’t tell us anything, and they’d blocked off all of the house other than the main hall and her private reading room – where it happened.” He ran a hand through his shock of black hair. “This was different, Hermione. Not only were there signs of torture, in addition to the markings consistent with the other victims, but all the portraits in the hallway had been slashed.”  
  
Her eyes widened in shock. “All the other crimes seemed opportunistic, but this was clearly targeted.” She shook her head. “Perhaps if we tried speaking with the house elves again, I could—”  
  
“I doubt we’ll get anywhere with them… we barely got onto the property in the first place.” He paused. “There’s something else.” She glanced back up from the paper. “The Malfoy file is missing from the archives. I tried to pull it this morning.”  
  
“That’s impossible! Only Ministry personnel have access, and even then it’s restricted,” she said.  
  
Shacklebolt interrupted then. “You see our concern… between the connection to the Death Eaters in the first murder, followed by a Ministry employee who  _did_  have access, Narcissa Malfoy’s death and now the missing file, it’s all tying back to that family.”  
  
She quite agreed, but then she also knew there was a piece missing from the puzzle, one of probably many, and the only way she could find out more was by answering the call. She wasn’t ready to say anything to Harry yet, let alone the Minister for Magic. That would involve opening up a whole other discussion, one she had never spoken about to anyone other than Seamus, and only because he was there from the start.  
  
She swallowed, before speaking again. “Do we know how they gained access? If the Aurors could only get in with permission from the house elves, it seems unlikely the culprit could just break in.”  
  
“Our thoughts too,” said Harry. “From what we understand about the wards on the property, and admittedly we don’t know a lot, only family can gain access without permission. And the friend was quite insistent that Narcissa never had visitors.”  
  
“But if they weren’t invited in, that leaves only Lucius, but he’s in prison…”  
  
“And Draco,” Harry finished. “His body was never found, but there’s never been anything to suggest he didn’t die that night.”  
  
Hermione said nothing, her mouth felt woolly. Her thoughts darted back and forth. “Has anyone spoken to Lucius?”  
  
“That’s the next thing on the agenda. Other than that though, we don’t have a lot to go on,” Harry replied. “Unless… have you found out any more on your end?”  
  
She stared at him for a few seconds, hesitating. “No more than yesterday, but I’ll go back through my notes… there’s a few more sources I plan to look into.”  
  
She left them to their discussions then, walking back to her desk in a haze. She felt conflicted and confused in a way she hadn’t in a long time. Harry trusted her, so did the Minister – although he wore that title now, he’d always placed trust in them, allowing them to progress through the red tape at a faster than usual pace. Fighting alongside someone had that levelling effect.  
  
She felt a strange sort of guilt, and yet wasn’t quite ready to pass judgement. She just couldn’t fathom the direction the case had taken, the mere suggestion that Malfoy could in fact be alive, and if so that he could murder those people. That he could murder his own mother. It made no sense. Whatever about the darkness which had always followed him, the inherent nature of his family which had shaped him, she would never have thought him capable of this.   
  
She thought of his expression in that moment, the last one, the defeat and uncertainty in his eyes as he dropped his wand. The admission.  
  
It couldn’t be. Could it?  
  
   
  
*  
  
Cool air whipped at her mass of curls as Hermione pulled her cloak higher about her neck. Night had fallen but the lights of the village tinkled brightly in a strange welcome. But she felt the sinister undercurrents. The few people on the street looked warily about. Fear of what had happened at the big house atop the hill had spread like fiendfyre. That accounted for the quietness of this late March evening. People clearly didn’t want to be out after dark in these times.  
  
That kind of fear had not consumed a wizarding community in many years. She stepped from the narrow alleyway into which she had Apparated just a moment before. She was here in this village to answer some burning questions. Her hand slipped into her pocket, smoothing over the round stone it found there. It could be no coincidence that the night she heard its call from within the locked drawer of her desk Narcissa Malfoy had been murdered.  
  
While she was here for answers, she tried fervently to tell herself that it was for the greater case and not the mystery which had haunted her these last few years. She hurriedly walked along the main street and took a left, eyeing the small house on the corner. Taking a deep breath, she rang the bell, willing her hand to still as she did so. It was a moment before a young woman, only a few years older than herself, appeared at the window by the door. Her wide gaze lit with recognition before she unbolted the latch.  
  
“Miss!” she exclaimed. “I thought perhaps you didn’t get my message or…”  
  
Hermione smiled tightly. “I did. I just wasn’t sure I would come… but with recent developments…”  
  
“Aye, the Mistress Malfoy’s murder.”  
  
“Right,” she said simply.  
  
“You’d best come in.” She opened the door more fully and stepped aside. “I’ll put some tea on for you. My husband is out and our little ones are in bed.”  
  
Hermione murmured a thank you and allowed herself to be seated at the round table in the kitchen. The little house was bathed in warmth from the fire, so she took off her cloak and settled, graciously accepting the hot tea.  
  
The woman sat down and nursed her steaming mug.  
  
“I had almost forgotten about it all, you see.” She paused. “Had that little stone tucked away though.”  
  
Hermione nodded and retrieved some parchment and a quill, her hand held aloft.  
  
“Two nights ago, when it happened, I was walking back from work. It was dark, you see. From the main street you can see the path toward the Manor, though it gets obscured a bit by all the overgrown hedges these days. Anyway, I saw two figures heavily cloaked. Didn’t think too much of it though, as there was always strange happenings up there.”  
  
Hermione thought back to her last conversation with the woman, how she spoke of the legacy of rumour and fear that had lingered in these parts for generations, and of the strange occurrences and disappearances.  
  
Hermione coughed, “Go on.”  
  
“The only thing is that the Mrs Malfoy rarely was seen or had guests after it all happened, so perhaps that’s why I paid attention. Felt odd, you see. Well there was two of them. One smaller and, I didn’t get a proper look, but it could have been a child. The other was a large enough man, tall and broad. His cloak fell back and I saw his face. Was from a distance, mind. But he had the look of him, the young Malfoy. Same pale hair, quite long, and fair features.”  
  
Hermione’s heart skittered to a strange new rhythm. “You’re certain?”  
  
“Hard to say, but he had the Malfoy look about him, is all I know for sure. How many of them do you see, especially around these parts? Just like you thought, Miss.”  
  
“And this was definitely on the night Narcissa Malfoy was murdered?”  
  
“Yes, saw it in the paper just today. Of course, at the time I messaged you, I didn’t know what had happened.”  
  
Hermione could see the tinge of fear and curiosity burn bright in the woman’s gaze.   
  
“What did happen, mind my asking? Only no one really knows and it’s a bit close to home.”  
  
“It’s a case the Ministry is investigating, so I can’t release any more information I’m afraid, but we are working on it.”  
  
“But you believe it’s the young Mr Malfoy, that he’s alive and came back?”  
  
“I’m not sure what I believe,” she said honestly.  
  
When the woman could provide no further details, Hermione bid her goodnight, telling her she may be back at some stage with further questions, but stressed the necessity for discretion. Her thoughts were all a jumble as she Apparated home, narrowly avoiding a disastrous case of splinching.  
  
She felt listless as she walked through the door, and stood for a time in the hallway, attempting to process all that had happened, all that she’d heard that day. Finally she removed her heavy coat, draping it over the stand by the door, and then walked purposefully toward her study.  
  
She flicked on the light and walked over to her desk, reaching underneath and to the back. Her hands brushed the heavy wood of a box that was hidden there before gripping firmly on the edges and pulling it out towards her. There was a leaden feeling in her limbs as she heaved it onto the desk. It throbbed like an ache through her bones, in rhythm with the beat of her heart. She hadn’t spared a glance at this hidden box in the two years since she had packed up its contents and swore to never reopen them.  
  
It had been at Seamus’s insistence that she do away with them, but she never did burn the papers as she promised. Perhaps, despite every insistence and promise she made to herself, a secret part of her still thought this day might come, though never under the circumstances with which it had.   
  
The box was full of notes on parchment, newspaper clippings and old photographs. Her research, all collected during those first three years after the close of the War. It also contained her copy of the Malfoy file. She’d borrowed it when she first joined the research team, and had made replicas of each of the original documents. It was now the only copy available, and they had no way of knowing just when the original had been stolen. She pulled some of the contents out, her fingers sifting through the pages, before they rested on one in particular.   
  
Her breath left her in a rush, as her finger stilled on the photograph. His face, precisely as she remembered it, looked back at her with a snide expression she knew well. But that wasn’t how she chose to remember him. Her thoughts of that time dwelled upon more intimate expressions, the haunted, hungry look in his eyes before he touched her, the intensity before he lowered his wand that final time. She blinked away such thoughts and, still holding the photograph, walked over to the empty board propped against one side of the small room, and pinned it to the centre.   
  
   
  
*  
  
The following afternoon, although it was a Saturday, she went back into the Ministry. There was no point in pretending that she could think about anything else. Not after the endless revelations of the previous day, the sheer insanity of it all. It defied logic, the very boundaries that governed how she thought, how she understood things.  
  
There were still several people working away when she entered. In their department, during scary times like this, there was no standard work week. She stayed for several hours, poring over texts and collating her notes. After a time, she sat upright and stretched, attempting to ease the tension in her neck and shoulders. She was starving now, having totally neglected basic sustenance in the face of all that was going on.  
  
She gathered her effects, and bundled all of her notes into her bag – she’d continue reviewing everything at home, where the rest of her information now formed an intricate map across the note board in her study.  
  
It was dark when she Apparated into her neighbourhood. She glanced around and tugged the collar of her coat up against the chill as she walked in the direction of her house. The safest point of Apparition was a few hundred yards away. She had several warning wards safeguarding the property – one could never be too careful – and they tended to go a little haywire when people Apparated too close.  
  
As she approached the house though, her senses went into overdrive. A faint red light shimmered around the building, fuzzy like the frayed edges of a piece of cloth. A warning, visible only to her. And she could see the living room light was on. It hadn’t been when she left. She swallowed anxiously, foreboding licked her skin as she gripped her wand and approached cautiously. The door was unlocked. She gently pushed it open and her stomach dropped. Her head swam, as though all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out, leaving her heady and delirious.  
  
There, like a faint white beacon in the dim light of her hall, stood a man she hadn’t seen in five years. One she hadn’t thought she’d ever see again. Draco Malfoy. Very much alive.


	4. The Moment of Truth

Surprise manifested itself in small needles pricking across her skin, but she held her wand steady. Somehow, after recent events, she’d known this moment would come, and even before that, despite the evidence to the contrary. They stared at each other for a seemingly endless period of time. His pale hair gleamed just as she remembered, though his features were sharper. She wasn’t sure it was fear she felt, though she should. It was masked beneath the layers of disbelief, uncertainty and other things she fought hard to ignore.  
  
“You aren’t supposed to be alive.”  
  
He shrugged in a casual way that belied the tension in his face, his posture. Despite being held at wand point, his own still rested at his side, held by what seemed the lightest of grips.  
  
“And yet here I am,” he said softly. The voice was just as she remembered. It had haunted her days these last years. “You never really believed that though, did you?”  
  
The smart response was familiar, but not the tiredness, the broken spirit that seemed to radiate from him. He was a stranger to her. The one puzzle she never had the chance to solve, though she had tried.  
  
“Why are you here, at my house? Where have you been all this time and,” she paused, “what makes you think I won’t immediately turn you in?” She gripped her wand tighter still.  
  
His head dropped, and his gaze appeared clouded, before he looked up at her again. “I have nowhere else to go.”  
  
Her brow furrowed, her breath rattling in her chest, which felt like the most endless of caverns. “Why… why did you do it? Narcissa… she—”  
  
His head shook, and his expression was of hollow disbelief. “Do you really believe that? My own mother?” When she didn’t respond, he continued speaking, his voice low and bitter. “It was in the paper. I saw…” He swallowed. “I came straight to London as soon as I heard. Look, I know how it seems, me being here after… everything. But I need your help. Whoever did this, they were looking for me too. The last thing I heard from her was that she was worried; she told me to be careful.”  
  
It was probably the most words he’d ever spoken to her that didn’t involve a veiled threat or insult. The realisation was disconcerting. Not least of all because he was asking for her help, something she never could have fathomed.  
  
“She never reported any concerns to the Ministry,” Hermione finally said. Then again, she probably wouldn’t have regardless of what was happening, not when she was protecting the secret of her son’s whereabouts. “A witness saw you in Wiltshire the night it happened.”  
  
A ghost of something passed across his features. “Still keeping tabs?”  
  
“No. I… I’m working on the case.”  
  
He murmured something she couldn’t grasp and tilted his head as he watched her, the intensity of his gaze too much.   
  
She shook her head. “You haven’t told me what you were doing there, if indeed it wasn’t you who murdered her. And if that is the case, despite all the evidence that suggests otherwise, then who did?”  
  
“I wasn’t there. I haven’t been home in five years. I have no idea who it was, or how they got in. But I have to find out. I have to know.”  
  
Her arm ached from holding her wand aloft, her grip causing a burn to creep up its length. “I have no reason to trust you, to believe a word you’re saying. For all I know, you’re here to kill me too.”  
  
He smiled crookedly, but it was a sad sort of smile. “I had the chance once. We both did.” He raked an agitated hand through his hair and stepped closer to her. His gaze pierced right through her carefully constructed walls, a torrid reminder of his ability to shake her to her core.  
  
Despite his continued presence in the darkest corners of her mind, and her persisting belief that he was still alive – still real and somewhere in the world – the physical reality of him stopped every pulsing part of her. Somehow, over time, she had created a different vision of him – one comprised of gentler moments, forgetting what she had endured at his hands, and everything he represented. She didn’t know who he was – who he had ever been, in truth – and certainly not the man he had become in the last five years. For all she knew, he was capable of anything.  
  
She saw him, saw the fractures in his very soul, as she held his gaze. Despite this she could not possibly trust him.  
  
“You looked for me. Relentlessly.” She wondered how he could possibly know such a thing. The possibility of him being there, watching her, sent shivers across her skin, but she could not afford to invest meaning in any of it. It terrified her in an entirely new way, the fact that his gaze could open up the hidden parts of her just as it had all those years ago.  
  
He was silent for a beat before he spoke again, a very slight crack evident in his voice. That was what shook her most, beyond everything else – for Draco Malfoy as she had known him was nothing if not composed, cold. “My mother, Granger… someone killed my mother.”  
  
She drew in a heady breath and swallowed. “Why would you trust me with this, if it’s all true? Why would you come to me?”  
  
His gaze held hers and he opened his mouth to say something, but then paused and looked away. “Whatever about the past, the things that happened… I know you’re tenacious when it comes to finding the truth. I’m choosing to trust in that and the fact that you will do the right thing here.”  
  
She opened her mouth to interrupt when he cut her off. “I know there will be… consequences to coming here, to you, but I’ll deal with that. This is more important than anything else.”  
  
He finally looked at her then, and she wanted to ask what he had been about to say before he changed his mind. She never would though; it would cost her dearly.  
  
She pinched the bridge of her nose. It was too much, all of it. She needed, more than anything, a moment to think. She chose her words carefully when she spoke. “I’ll admit I find it… unlikely… that you would do that to your own mother. The evidence, however, would suggest otherwise.”  
  
“A touch convenient, wouldn’t you say?” The corner of his mouth turned up in bitter irony. “Look, I realise that on the face of it, it looks bad, but why would I show up here of all places – proving I’m alive and risking everything – if I was guilty.”  
  
It was the one thing she couldn’t reconcile. Her grip on her wand loosened slightly, and his gaze honed in on the movement. She clenched it harder.  
  
“You’re scared,” he said finally, a strange note lingering in his voice. “You weren’t always.”  
  
Her expression was defiant but she said nothing by way of response.  
  
He pushed his shoulders back, straightening his posture. Her gaze avidly tracked each movement, though she hated herself for it. “Just think about what I’ve said.” He reached inside the pocket of his robe and flicked a coin in her direction. “Contact me if you change your mind.”  
  
She glanced down at the heavy coin. It was a galleon, no doubt imbued with the Protean Charm. Her stomach twisted at the realisation that he was still making use of her innovations from fifth year. She glanced up to say something, and realised he was gone. The air rushed from her lungs. She felt depleted and horribly confused.  
  
He was right – she was scared, though not for the reasons he undoubtedly imagined. The last time she allowed herself to become entangled in his web it wrought havoc on her world, and the shape of life – of herself in it – had never quite fit back in the same way since. Even the prospect of opening the door and allowing him back in was more than she thought she could handle.  
  
And yet, despite logic and everything within her head that told her otherwise, she somehow believed him – about his mother at the very least. The man before her was not quite whom she remembered, as though time, weariness and desperation had eroded the smooth polish that he’d worn like a cloak.  
  
She couldn’t sleep that night; she tossed and turned in her bed, her thoughts impossible to unravel. She felt a war broiling within her, for she feared that, in this case, there was no perfect course of action.  
  
   
  
*  
  
   
  
When she awoke the next morning, still exhausted from the events of the previous day, and her inability to sleep, she felt a shift in her resolve. She was conflicted on too many levels. On the one hand, she knew she shouldn’t have let him walk away the previous evening, had berated herself endlessly for even entertaining what he’d said. By rights he ought to be made to answer for his crimes, for being a Death Eater at the very least. Even if he never did kill anyone, and that was an extraordinary if. The fact was that if his participation had been restricted to the activities during his school year, then his punishment would likely be limited as he was only young at the time.   
  
Yet, she felt quite certain that he would never voluntarily hand himself in. This was a man who had staged his own death and lived on the run – presumably – for five years. It was a bridge she would have to cross, if indeed she decided to hear him out. The only real conclusion she had come to was that, despite the evidence, she did believe him. It made no sense for someone like Malfoy to intentionally target and murder pureblood witches and wizards, let alone his own mother. The evidence pointing to him was circumstantial at best and in her heart she’d never thought him capable of it. Perhaps that was naiveté, but the belief rang true in every fibre of her being.   
  
The Ministry had no leads to go on, nothing except the possibility he presented. But there would have to be conditions. The primary thing that continued to weigh on her was the woman from Wiltshire and her statement. Though he denied being there, it really meant little in the scheme of things. She decided that he would have to agree to being questioned under Veritaserum, to which he would undoubtedly object. It was either that or no deal. Assurances meant nothing.    
  
After tossing the thoughts around her mind, she finally picked up the galleon and contacted him. Her fingers tingled at the thought of once more engaging in secret meetings with him, and wonder at how she could be back in this place once more. She attempted to go about her business that morning, before finally giving up and choosing to stare at the coin on the table. There was little point in pretending that anything else could occupy her thoughts. It was folly, of course, thinking about him had never done her any good.  
  
Just when her agitation had reached its peak, and she felt sure she would summon Harry and admit everything, she felt a quiver of magic and noticed the faint red glow that signalled her wards had once more been breached. She hurried into the small hallway.  
  
Even though she was prepared to see him this time, it was impossible to reconcile the reality of the man before her. He stood tall, his slender fingers caressing his wand, held lightly by his side once more. Some of the tension around his eyes had eased, and she saw the faintest trace of the hauteur she recalled so vividly from their youth.  
  
“Could you please just use the knocker?” she said, exasperation disguising her discomfort.           
  
“I think you’ll understand if I don’t want to be seen outside your house in the daylight. That would raise difficult questions for both of us right now.”  
  
He wasn’t wrong, which irked her, but she let it slide and told him to join her in the kitchen. The sight of him standing in the small and cosy room was disturbing. It felt wrong, wholly at odds with all of their previous interactions. She could see that he too felt equally out of sorts, as he stood somewhat awkwardly by her kitchen bench,  
  
“Can you just sit down,” she said finally, taking a seat herself. He acquiesced and she realised that was probably the first and last time he would actually do so.  
  
They looked at each other across the table, and his eyes darted to her wand, which was placed to her right, rather than held aloft and aimed at his throat. He seemed to read a sort of concession in that, and she supposed he wasn’t entirely incorrect.  
  
“So, I take it you’ve given some thought to what I said yesterday,” he finally commented, interrupting the stark and overwhelming silence.  
  
She pushed back her shoulders and looked at him directly, summoning all composure. This was, after all, business. “I have… and I have decided that I will help you, if I can. Only because there are things we don’t understand and perhaps you can help shed some light on them. For us, the Ministry, that is.”  
  
He nodded slowly. “I see.”  
  
“I have a few stipulations though.” A strange sort of smile quirked upon his lips for the briefest of seconds.  
  
“Naturally,” he said, as he gestured for her to continue.  
  
She took a deep breath. “Firstly, you have to agree to my questioning you under Veritaserum. I think you will understand why that is necessary given the circumstances. Your word is not good enough… for obvious reasons.” She pushed a piece of parchment across the table to him. “It’s a list of the questions I will ask.”  
  
His gaze scanned the list and if he felt uncomfortable with any of the questions there, it didn’t show. His expression still neutral, he raised his eyes to hers. “And secondly?”  
  
She watched him briefly, taking in the pale gleam of his hair, the lean lines of his face. “Secondly, you have to agree to turn yourself in after this is… resolved.”  
  
His jaw clenched and a shadow flickered in his gaze, but he said nothing, merely nodding his head once.  
  
“I rather thought you’d argue the latter point,” she admitted, curious as to why he hadn’t.  
  
“Perhaps it’s time,” he said simply. She wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, or to the general politeness of the conversation.  
  
“Very well,” she said, steering the conversation back on track. She pulled a small vial from a dark wooden box that sat by her wand. It contained the Veritaserum potion, something she kept on hand just in case. Given the time and difficulty involved in brewing the potion, she was fortunate indeed that she did.   
  
She reached out to hand the vial to him, and tried to control her response to the mere brush of his fingers to hers as he took it. It would not do to dwell on the last time he had touched her. He held her gaze as he tipped back the potion and swallowed. As some of the tension eased from his shoulders, she reached across to bring the parchment before her.   
  
She cleared her voice. “Is your name Draco Malfoy?”   
  
“Yes.”  
  
She asked a few more introductory questions, as was procedure when interviewing someone under Veritaserum, before turning to the more pertinent subjects.  
  
“Have you been home to Wiltshire since the night of your disappearance and presumed death?”  
  
“No, I have not been home since before the night he – the Dark Lord – died.”  
  
“Did you kill your mother?”  
  
There wasn’t a twitch, or any visible signs that he was trying to fight the potion’s pull – fruitless though they would have been. But the bleak expression that lingered on his features at her words was one that would stay with her.   
  
“No.” She felt the sweet warmth of relief flood her body, absurd though it was. Part of her, the logical part, unravelled at the statement. The truth was, she couldn’t bear to think that the boy to whom she had once been so drawn was capable of such an act. It was vindication, if nothing else.  
  
“Where have you been for the past five years?”  
  
He paused this time, a war within written clearly across his features. “Hiding. I moved across Europe – Romania, Hungary, and the Netherlands. Never one place for too long.”  
  
“Were you in contact with your mother, Narcissa, during this time?”  
  
“Yes. We communicated via owl but only rarely. The last message she sent me was only a week before it happened. She was worried, though she did not provide details in case the letter was intercepted.”  
  
“And have you been back to England at all before now?”  
  
“Yes, on occasion, but not for some time. There were things of a… personal nature I had to see to.”  
  
Her heart skipped and her palms became sweaty. She blinked and nodded before continuing. “And have you had any contact with previous acquaintances, other than Narcissa, in that time?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“How did you… what happened on that night leading to your disappearance?” Her voice felt thready as she asked the question, the one that had burned within her for five years. It didn’t necessarily pertain to the case, but she simply had to know.  
  
“After I saw you… after Weasley hexed me, I was unconscious for a time. My mother found me and managed to get me beyond the anti-Apparition wards. It was just a concussion, so I was fine after a day or two. She told me the Dark Lord would lose and that I should remain in hiding. I only found out about my father’s imprisonment after the trials.”  
  
She thought she understood now. Narcissa – whatever else about her – loved her son unconditionally, enough to risk everything to ensure his survival. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but somehow she had always perceived the family as incapable of love in the tangible sense.  
  
Her last question, the most important, hovered on her tongue as silence reigned. He watched her intently, knowing the words over which she was tripping. Finally she spoke, and her voice was clear and strong. “Have you ever killed someone, whether through the Avada Kedavra curse, or other means?”  
  
He leaned forward, palms resting flat on the table, and held her gaze with a fierceness that made her dizzy. It felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room, leaving them suspended on an alternate continuum. “No.”  
  
The word rang in her ears, and the relief of before bloomed within, more fervent this time. Despite the tumultuous nature of her thoughts, she simply nodded once and reached within the small box to fish out the antidote.  
  
Moments later, he sat up straighter, relieved of the effects of the potion. “Satisfied?” he asked.  
  
“On the most important points, yes. But that doesn’t shed any light on how we are to solve this case. Perhaps it would have been easier if you were guilty.”  
  
His expression flickered at her use of the word ‘we’, before he sighed at her latter comment. “Perhaps,” he said simply. “It’s your turn for honesty now, though we’ll dispense with the need for potions. What does the Ministry know so far?”  
  
She filled him in on the details of the spree to date, noting the way his eyes widened and his lips twitched at the description of the murders. When she told him what the woman in Wiltshire had seen, he sat back in his chair, shock evident in the line of his shoulders, despite his neutral expression.  
  
“Do you have any idea who it could have been, since we’ve determined it wasn’t you – or Lucius, for that matter?”  
  
He shook his head and looked at her directly. “I have no idea. I would have said Polyjuice was involved, but that doesn’t account for them bypassing the wards on the estate.”  
  
“Speaking of which, how do they work exactly? Harry mentioned that the Ministry only gained entrance because the house elves – reluctantly, I might add – let them in.”  
  
“It’s true that people can’t just enter the gates at will. There are a series of wards – infinitely more effective than your own, by the way – and layers of blood magic involved in protecting the estate. Without permission, only those who are Malfoy by blood and marriage can gain entrance.”  
  
She narrowed her eyes at his comment about her wards, but brushed it off, focusing on the very clear issue to hand. “That’s as we expected. But if Narcissa never had guests, and it wasn’t you or Lucius, who else is there? Cousins or—”  
  
“Not on the Malfoy side. And while my mother is an exception, her family don’t have any exemption.” He looked at her, his palms turned up. “I have to get into the Manor.”  
  
She shook her head furiously. “Don’t be absurd! It’ll be under surveillance for a few days at least. Besides, there’s no point. The Ministry already have a full report and—”  
  
“And it’s entirely useless. The house elves wouldn’t tell them anything. They do, however, answer to me. We both know that irrespective of the other victims and how they fall into this, my family is at the centre of it.”  
  
She stared at him, before finally nodding in agreement. “Fine, we’ll work something out, but I’ll need a couple of days.”  
  
“Also,” he said, and there was something in his voice that caused a tingle to dance down the length of her spine. “I want to see your research. All of it.”  
  
“What? No, that’s Ministry restric—”  
  
“We both know you have your own notes on the side… you were always eager when it came to projects. And besides, I think we can agree we’re already beyond the point of worrying over Ministry guidelines.” He gestured to himself, a supposedly dead fugitive, sitting at her kitchen table.  
  
He had a point. She felt tremulous as she nodded, and walked on legs that felt like stilts toward her study. They entered the room and it felt too small to share with him, as though his presence filled in all the negative space, making it impossible to breathe. She watched him as he stared at the enormous note board, detailing her obsessive search for him, and for answers. His eyes tracked over notes, maps and clippings and landed on the photo of him, pinned at the centre.   
  
She felt lightheaded and strangely exposed. He swallowed visibly and wrenched his gaze away and toward hers. He was far too close for comfort.  
  
“That’s why.” His voice was rough. Like sandpaper over silk, it caught at the fabric of her. “You wanted to know why I chose to trust you. This is why,” he gestured toward the board, his eyes not moving from hers for a second.  
  
She looked away, the intensity too much. “I don’t believe in leaving mysteries unsolved,” she said with an attempt at a careless shrug.  
  
“The Ministry had no problem with it,” he replied.  
  
She couldn’t tell him that in her bones she’d always believed he was alive, that she had been so sure she felt his presence in the quiet moments in her house. She couldn’t tell him that it had been impossible for her to reconcile the possibility that he might not have been, despite her very best attempts to the contrary. Telling him such things would be more of an admission than she could manage, and one that would expose parts of her that weren’t his to see.  
  
She glanced up at him then, and somehow he seemed larger, closer than before. His eyes burnt a trail across her features, as though searching for signs of how she’d changed. She coughed and stepped back then, and whatever film had formed around them seemed to dissolve.   
  
“Contact me with a time to visit the Manor,” he said, a cold veneer lacing his words. She simply nodded and watched the empty space after he left.


	5. A Hall of Ghosts and Shadows

The light that filtered through the small kitchen window was the opaque, milky hue of dusk. A close to another day, it fell in shadows cast across the man who sat before her. She watched his weary shoulders, noted the tension that lined those hands as they reached to remove glasses, to pinch the bridge of his nose. Harry was exhausted. It lingered in his features, thick like molasses.

As Hermione watched her friend wrestle with his frustration, she felt the tell-tale clenching of her gut, her body’s physical response to the urge she had to let words fall like grenades from her lips, exploding devices ready to blow as they scattered around the floor. Malfoy is alive.

Ginny bustled around the kitchen, making tea and comforting sounds. Hermione felt paralysed. The moment seemed to stretch, Harry’s gaze far away and clouded, her lips parted. She could taste the way the words would sound on her tongue, had recited them soundlessly on an endless reel for the past two days. Malfoy is alive.

The texture of that very name, as it curled beneath her tongue and rattled against her teeth had become a lullaby and a nightmare. The silence was eating at her, small nibbles here and there, and she wanted nothing more than to be the Hermione of old. Before secrets, half-truths and him.

But the words stuck in her throat. To say them would only signify the beginning of a conversation, a story that she just could never imagine putting into words. She had never been a keeper of secrets, not from Harry anyway. Yet now there were so many, an intricate web of big lies and then small ones, layer upon layer, year upon year. It made the first ones seem somehow more innocuous. The latter, more hurtful for the lengths she’d go to keep them, beyond the time when fear and youth could be counted as acceptable factors in her decision making.

Harry was exceptionally understanding, but he wouldn’t understand this. How could he, when she could scarcely hope to? How could she possibly explain Malfoy’s presence in her present, when he didn’t know about her past? Beyond finding the words to adequately explain it all was the thought of the betrayal, and how it would cloud his usually clear gaze. After all, while he and Ron risked their lives for all of them, she had been – she wasn’t even sure what the appropriate word was – cavorting with the enemy. A boy who had made her friend’s life – her life too – hell whenever he could. A boy who was a Death Eater, whose father had supported the very wizard who murdered Harry’s parents.

It was so much bigger than those strange stolen moments in secluded corridors, when the shape of her understanding of him, her response to him, had somehow altered. It was against the very fibre of her being, and pulling that thread loose could only further unravel the poorly sewn fabric of her life. Even now, when the war was no more and life had started to resemble something akin to normal.

She reached for his hand, this boy who always seemed to wear the world on his shoulders. It wasn’t right that he felt he had to. Not this time.

Her voice croaked when she finally spoke. “I will find something, Harry. I will.” Malfoy is alive.

His gaze shifted to fall on her once more, before he sighed, a weary smile curving his lips. “I know. If anyone can figure this out, it’s you. It’s just… there’s so much we don’t know. We don’t even know the right questions let alone how to find the answers.” He paused, running a hand through his shock of unruly hair. “It’s a media frenzy too, and it’s only going to get worse.”

Hermione knew exactly what he meant. Small pockets of people had started voicing – if not support, per se, then certainly a lack of disparagement for the murder of purebloods. It was a small taste of what half-bloods and Muggleborns had endured for decades, they said. It made her sick. So much was at stake now, more than she had ever imagined when the file first landed on her desk.

In the two days since Draco Malfoy had stood in her small study, eyes pinned to the board that marked her torrid obsession with finding him, Hermione’s equilibrium had been in turmoil. She believed what he had said, had somehow known, even before the truth potion, that his words were true. Why that was the case, she couldn’t quite say. His behaviour in the past certainly gave her no reason, but she was not always her logical self when it came to that man.

In some ways she wished it was all a lie, that he was guilty and that they could simply lock him away in the bowels of Azkaban so that she could free herself of this situation. The case was, suddenly, so much more complex than they had realised, and Hermione could not trust the ground beneath her feet when he was near. It was infinitely too much. She had managed to live with the ghost of him for five years, lurking in memories, a hazy presence that lingered like the still there after-effect of a dream. But the reality of him, skin and bone and sinew, a boy she knew yet didn’t, a man she couldn’t reconcile – it was too much.

But he was a lead, their only one potentially, and she would not leave it to Harry to take all the risks, to shoulder the burden alone.

“Has there been any more activity at the Manor?” she finally asked, careful to keep her tone neutral. She had wrestled with Malfoy’s demand to see the Manor, and had finally conceded. In truth, she knew he would go without her if she refused, and that was simply not an option.

Harry shook his head. “We’ve had round the clock surveillance out front, but to be honest, we aren’t expecting them to return. No real way of knowing what is or isn’t missing, but we think they got what they came for.”

Narcissa. He didn’t say the name, but it lingered heavy in the air, swallowing up the sounds of Ginny muttering in the background.

“The worst part,” he said suddenly, “is that we’re waiting for another body to show up, another clue. We’re just so many steps behind them and all we have are bodies and questions.”

“Did you speak to Lucius?”

“Tried. He’s completely insane, Hermione, or doing a great impression of it. He didn’t seem to even process it when we told him about Narcissa.”

Hermione nodded, but her thoughts were a tangle of next steps and strategically moved chess pieces. They were caught on the charmed galleon Malfoy had pressed into her palm, and on the only move that seemed to be clear.

 

*

She pulled her collar higher against the chill as she stepped outside her house, glancing furtively around. The night air was crisp upon her cheeks, but instinctively she knew the chill that ran deep in her bones was more than just the wind. It was the unsettling thought of what she was about to do. What they were about to do.

Hermione was just about to glance down at her watch again when movement amid the leaves and shadow made her start. He seemed to emerge as though from smoke and nothing more, like light bleeding from the darkness. He moved his head fractionally, the most subtle of gestures.

“Malfoy,” she said, a bare whisper. “I didn’t see you there.”

He opened his mouth, then paused and arched an expressive brow at her. His gaze clear and bright and knowing. “You should be more observant, Granger. You never know who is watching.”

She felt the ghost of fingers steal down her spine. The moment was hauntingly familiar. The way he said her name, the shape of his mouth as they formed the sounds. A look of intent, so faint, seemed to linger in his features, like fine wine laced with arsenic. It took her straight back to then.

His words felt like a challenge, and he watched her closely. His gaze seeming to burn through the many layers of her, seeking out the truth. She’d almost forgotten how he did that, levelled her with a look, as though the weight of his gaze could be felt no less than the pressure of a brand upon her skin.

Hermione looked away from him and clasped her hands in front of her. “Let’s just get this over with.”

When she glanced back she noticed the barest kiss of amusement grace his features, before he nodded in agreement.

“Nervous?” he asked as he walked closer. “If I recall correctly, sneaking in and out of places you weren’t meant to be was something of a pastime once.”

“Once,” she agreed, with a soft sort of finality. She didn’t want to have this conversation, an almost nothing, whisper of a discussion that hinted at before, at things she didn’t want to explore. He didn’t seem to be the same broken shadow of his former self today. Perhaps it was a result of finding renewed purpose, but there was a hint of the boy she remembered lingering amid the layers of man before her.

He held her gaze as he reached out a pale hand from his coat pocket. She stared at it for an eternity, only a mere second or two, but it felt endless. There was something about him holding his hand out to her, voluntarily, that was so at odds with the torment that used to linger in his features when he looked at her. It also spoke of partnership. They now, albeit with separate motives, had a common goal, and nothing in the last few days had made that realisation as stark as this moment.

“I’m not going to cut it off,” he said, gesturing to his still outstretched hand. “That would be counterproductive.”

Hermione pushed her shoulders pack, felt resolve unfurl within, and held out her own hand. She didn’t like the idea of relying on him to guide them to their destination, but he knew the grounds of Malfoy Manor inside and out, and so she had to trust him not to get her splinched. It burned at the back of her throat.

His palm was warm and that startled her. Their hands together were like milk on honey, his folded over hers. She watched shadows skitter in his gaze, now focused on their clasped hands, before they disappeared behind a shutter of cool. Then she felt the pull behind her navel. The vortex. His hand.

Her feet hit solid ground and she gasped with relief. They released each other instantly. It was cold here in Wiltshire, the raised grounds of the Manor leaving them exposed. Colder even than the night a week ago when she had arrived here and set the chain in motion. Hermione adjusted her coat, tucking errant curly strands behind her ear and away from the pull of the wind.

Malfoy was staring up at the Manor, the only movement a slight bob in his throat. She wondered what he must be thinking, looking at his family home, now a shell of memories. They were at the back end of the grounds, just outside a giant black wrought iron gate that seemed almost to merge with the hedges behind it. She could see a faint shimmer around the metal. The wards, layers upon layers of them, according to Malfoy.

She looked around. “No Aurors, at least. But can we actually get in this way?”

He threw a lazy look at her. “No… I brought you here for my own devious reasons.”

Cutting remarks had always been his favourite weapon. But in this case he spoke the words with no inflection, and she felt heat creep up her neck, blooming a deeper pink as his eyes traced the insidious spread. She narrowed her eyes at him, a warning he didn’t appear concerned with.

Hermione didn’t know how to deal with this man, how to read him. She had once. She’d managed, somehow, to sear through the shroud with which he cloaked himself, enough to see that whatever else about him, he’d been just as confused, as affected as her.

He turned away to look at the hedges, his gaze searching. He paused at one spot and pressed his open palm forward. She could see the strain, as though it were pressed against a solid wall, not the crush of leaves and twigs. She watched, fascinated as heat seemed to radiate, dissolving green and black and brown, foliage and metal, until the way was clear.

Malfoy turned to her then, grabbing her arm and hauling her to him. The barest of breaths could pass in the space between them, and she could feel the heat pulsing from him. It always shocked her, for he seemed so cold in other moments, like a statue cut from marble.

His grip still firm, her body pressed to his, he steered them through the open path. She glanced back, slightly breathless, and watched as tiny fibres stitched together, new leaves forming and twining around branches until the gap was no more.

Malfoy let go of her and took a step back. “Welcome to Malfoy Manor,” he murmured.

Hermione felt the chill of the night air bite at her skin at the sudden removal of his body’s heat, but it was a relief nonetheless. She looked around at the still manicured lawns, lush green grass and pure white pebbles. He was silent then, his gaze moving over the house like a caress. It was, she realised, the first time he had seen it since before the downfall of Voldemort, and Malfoy’s own disappearance. She wondered then at the tangled web of his thoughts as he appeared to try his best to unwind them.

They walked for what felt like hours in a strange and heavy silence. She glanced at him once or twice as they continued toward the back of the large house. His eyes were on the building ahead, but his thoughts seemed to be adrift, lost somewhere in memory, she could only assume. There was tension in his shoulders, as though he was caught in a maelstrom of desire to rush forward and the weight of dread holding him back.

Finally they reached the large door that spilled out onto the terrace on which they now stood. Malfoy pressed his hand once more against the door, the barest of touches, and it eased open as if by will. It felt wrong, being here, in his home. It was an alien place. So very different to the warmth of her parent’s home, or the bustle and noise of The Burrow. She couldn’t imagine laughter here. She couldn’t imagine a childhood here at all.

Hermione took a deep breath as they entered, the light was soft, aglow from candles that lined the walls, though unlit chandeliers hung from the ceiling above them. When her eyes adjusted somewhat she noted the line of house elves, large eyes shining in the dark. One stepped forward, his gaze lit with reverence. She stiffened.

“Dilly,” Malfoy said in a gravelly voice she didn’t recognise.

“Master Draco,” the house elf said. “We is not thinking you would return. The Mistress…”

Malfoy’s jaw tightened as his eyes darted around the room, seemingly unable to pause. “I know… tell me everything.”

The house elf Dilly nodded quickly, “Come now, Master Draco. Dilly will tell you everything, and show you.” The other house elves disappeared and Dilly scuttled away, Malfoy’s long stride following behind.

Hermione hurried to keep up, not failing to notice that not once had the house elf Dilly even looked in her direction. They walked through large and decorative rooms, down a hall lined with portraits of witches and wizards with white-blond hair and pale skin, their features marred by the long slashes that had torn errant pieces of canvas.

If Malfoy had a reaction to all of this, he kept it to himself, his silence a weight that pressed in like the walls around this place. They arrived in a small parlour. A fire had already been lit and a silver tray of tea was stationed on a table by the chaise suite. The fragrant blend seemed to spread far reaching in this room, the only other sign of life.

Malfoy turned to her suddenly, as though he had forgotten she was there. “Sit,” he said distractedly, gesturing to one of the arm chairs.

She didn’t even question his tone, because she felt too awkward standing, hovering out of place. Malfoy paced for a moment, then turned and looked expectantly at the house elf. “Tell me.”

“Mistress Narcissa was being watched, she said. She was worried, though she is not saying what about, only that someone was coming.” The house elf trembled. “The night it happened, they came in, through the gates and the wards. We was thinking it must be you, Master Draco, but Mistress was knowing better. When they entered the grounds she made us lock all the doors in the house except the one to her sitting room. The Mistress made us leave and told us not to come, not to tell anyone the truth, not unless you returned.” He paused and looked at Malfoy with solemn eyes. “She was hoping you would not come.”

Malfoy’s eyes closed briefly and he swallowed with difficulty.

“Dilly was hiding in the main hall when they walked in. It was a ghost, Master Draco. The man looked like Master Lucius, he looked like you. Dilly thought, perhaps… but then… the witch. She had your hair, your eyes. Malfoy eyes.” The house elf looked shaken, and Hermione felt tremulous fingers clawing at her neck.

“How?” Malfoy breathed, seemingly to himself.

“We is not knowing, Sir. But how else is they getting through the wards, through the door?” He looked scared. “They found the Mistress, and Dilly followed them. She was waiting, ready. They asked questions about you, Master Draco. Where you is… buried. She did not tell them, Sir, and they… they—”

“How, Dilly? What did you see?”

Dilly’s eyes were wide and glassy, his knobbly neck quivered as he swallowed. “I is not hearing the curse, but there was purple light all around the Mistress – inside her – and the bad witch she had a necklace,” his hands trailed his neck as he spoke, almost in a trance. “The light went inside it, inside her. And the Mistress was gone.” He shuddered.

Malfoy looked pale, and Hermione felt ill, her skin flush at the description. It all tied in – the purple markings. But why? How?

“What happened… after?” Malfoy asked, his voice now steady. “Did they say anything? Give any clue as to who they are?”

The house elf shook his head solemnly. “They is speaking in a different language, Master Draco, before they left. I is not knowing what, but she… the Mistress, she knew who they were. They left after, slashing the portraits, all the family, in the hall.”

Hermione watched Malfoy, his gaze directed intently toward the flames. She wondered what visions danced across them for him, what horrors.

“That’s all, Dilly. We will not be here long.”

Dilly nodded, and bowed low, before turning to leave. He stopped mid-step and whirled around. “There is something else, Master, that I is forgetting!”

Malfoy whirled around.

“The necklace. It is the one in the portrait, the one…” But Malfoy, eyes wide, stilled for a brief moment, before he whirled around and bolted out the door. It took Hermione a second before she raced out after him. They crossed hallways, climbed stairs, endlessly, into other parts of the Manor, where everything looked untouched, preserved by Dilly and the house elves on Narcissa’s last orders.

Finally, gasping for breath, she almost collided with him when he stopped outside one particular door. Hermione’s brain was buzzing, trying to process, yet failing amid the strangeness of the evening. Malfoy glanced down at her, shadows lurking within his gaze, ones she couldn’t decipher.

“My father’s study,” he said, his tone somewhat clipped. He turned the knob, and she was both relieved and nervous when it opened.

“What was all that about a portrait? A necklace?” she asked breathlessly.

He walked into the centre of a large room, walls lined with trinkets and bookshelves, at the centre of which was a huge mahogany desk. This was Lucius Malfoy’s private study, the wrongness of being here hummed within the pit of her. Malfoy held her gaze for a moment, then it travelled up and to the right. He nodded his head.

Turning around Hermione saw the portrait in question. A graceful woman with dark, almost black hair, and sharp features stared back. At the base of her neck rested a heavy gold amulet, the stone at the centre was large, and multi-tonal. It appeared translucent from one angle, blood red the next, but they both knew from Dilly’s story that it pulsed purple.

She swallowed, her gaze transfixed. “Who—”

At some point Malfoy had moved to stand beside her, so silently that she started when his voice was so close. “My grandfather’s grandmother. Althea Malfoy.”

“By marriage?” she queried, after all, the Malfoy colouring seemed an entirely dominant gene. Particularly after what they had just heard.

He nodded. “Althea Malfoy née Black.”

Hermione’s eyes cut to his. “So your parents were related… distantly.”

Something hinted at his lips, a slight curve. “Isn’t everyone?” His gaze challenged hers and she wanted to respond, but it was pointless; there were infinitely more pressing matters to hand.

They looked back at the portrait. Althea Malfoy’s lip curled as she looked back at Hermione, distaste apparent in her gaze.

“She doesn’t talk,” Malfoy said. “That amulet is something of a family legend. It’s been missing for generations.”

Hermione glanced at him. “Why doesn’t she talk?”

“She cut out her own tongue.”

Hermione reflected that she really ought to have listened to the voice in her head, the logical one, that told her getting wrapped up in a Malfoy-related mystery was going to be a bad idea, regardless of what was at stake.

“Now we know it’s not a legend at least, the amulet, that is. What do you know about it?”

He hesitated a beat, his hand coming to rest at the back of his neck. She could tell that he, like her, was overwhelmed by their discoveries, desperate to piece them together, yet somehow yearning to walk away. Whatever the outcome, whoever the murderers where, and however this amulet and the Malfoys were tied into it, it was not going to be pretty.

“More now than I did before, and that’s almost nothing. My father never talked about it, but I remember being in here many times and watching him stare at that portrait.”

Hermione tucked that away, before turning to the other revelation. “They’re related to you, somehow. We have to figure out the connection, who they are, before we have any way of working out why they killed your mother, or anyone else for that matter. And we have to do it fast because I get the sense that they are only starting to work towards their end game.”

There was something in his gaze that caught and flared as she spoke, she wasn’t sure quite what it was.

“We will,” he said with subtle emphasis. “Sounds like you’ve embraced working with the enemy.”

Enemy. He said it softly, thoughtfully. She rolled the word around in her head. She supposed he was, he ought to be. He was not, even now, on her side of the line drawn in the sand so long ago, but maybe they could both straddle that line a little longer. A common goal. She supposed that she had, somehow, accepted over the course of the evening that he was a partner of sorts in this. He could bring insight, information that the Ministry never could have gleaned without him. He had access.

“I suppose so,” she said, her voice remarkably steady.

 

*

 

Hermione glanced at her watch. It was approaching midnight and they had yet to leave the Manor. They were in the family library, where they had spent the last hour or so combing through titles – the obscure and dark kind one wouldn’t find in the Ministry annals or at Hogwarts. The Malfoy collection was extensive… and at times gruesome. Beside Hermione was a large bag filled with volumes they planned to take with them, and her fingers itched to reach within and run over them.

She glanced around. The library was large, and warm enough due to the fire which had been lit once more ahead of their arrival – as though the house elves had known they would come here. Even after close to three hours within the grounds, she couldn’t get used to the hollowness of the place. She felt the ghosts of memories, a torrid history of violence, cruelty and pretension that lined the walls. It was hard to reconcile that this had been his home, and yet somehow it explained a lot.

She looked at him closely, sitting across from her, for the first time since he had walked back into her life. She hadn’t allowed herself that luxury as it seemed too much to stare before, and he was always staring back. This was, she realised, the longest amount of time that she had ever spent wholly in his company… including that night in her dormitory. She flushed thinking about it.

His hair was slightly longer, still the pale spun gold of weak sunlight. It fell, at times, across his brow and he didn’t seem to notice. His alabaster skin gleamed in the firelight. It was striking, and she supposed that had always been part of the fascination, because he didn’t look real, not like anyone else she’d ever known.

His face was more angular, his jaw more defined. And he was broader, though she supposed that was natural after so many years. He was substantially taller than her, he had been back then, but somehow his presence now seemed more all-encompassing, sucking the space and air out of a room. She gnawed at her lower lip. It felt strange to be here in his ancestral home, watching him pore over ancient texts. Surreal.

It made her wonder, fleetingly, what he might have been like had he grown up somewhere else, been someone other than a Malfoy. How very different his life might have been.

“Enough with the bleeding heart.” His voice cut through her thoughts and her vision focused on his piercing gaze, which bored right into her. “It’s written all over your face – you should really learn to control that, by the way.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Any pity lasted a second before sense took over. And for the record, at least I have more than one expression.”

His gaze seemed to darken, become heavier. His eyes scanned her face thoroughly and she felt heat crawling up her neck. “Oh, I remember,” he said, his words almost lost amid the crackle of flame on wood.

Her stomach dropped as they stared at each other, thoughts circling and swooping.

Finally, he broke the moment and snapped shut the book he was perusing. He gracefully unfolded his form and stood. “We have one more stop before we leave.” He glanced at her, his brow raised. “That is if we can extricate you from this room.”

She repressed a glare, stood up and pushed back her shoulders. “I’m quite ready, thank you.” Though the library was impressive, and somehow reassuring in contrast with the rest of the house, she truly could not wait to escape the confines of the estate and return to the comfort of her home.

She murmured a quick charm on the unwieldy bag of books, shrinking it to the size of her palm, then calmly placed it in her jacket pocket.

Hermione followed him from the library through yet more corridors, trying in vain to ignore the unpleasant sneers from his forebears, whose portraits lined the walls. An insidious voice whispered regret that they too had not been irreparably damaged.

Finally, after several minutes of silence, she asked, “Where are we going now?”

He stopped before a door and glanced back. “We’re here. These are my quarters.” He pushed open the door and walked in.

Hermione, feeling suddenly very uncomfortable, paused at the threshold. She had been in his rooms once before, quite against her will, when they were in Hogwarts. This was somehow infinitely more intimate. This was his space, where he had grown up, become the person she had so hated.

Challenge lingered in the angles of his features as he watched her hesitation. She cleared her throat and stepped inside. Wrong. The word seemed to reverberate around in her mind and, judging from the look on his face, Malfoy knew exactly what she was thinking.

Yet though she was torn, between standing in the hallway – between maintaining distance – and the morbid curiosity to see where he had spent his formative years, the space that was more his than anywhere else, she couldn’t bear for him to think she cared. That she read some sort of significance into any of his actions.

It was a ridiculous notion, because despite the carefully polite conversation, and his only occasional references to a more intimate knowledge of each other, he knew. He’s been there, just as affected and disturbed as she had been. That, she supposed, was the thing that truly bound them.

The room was large and scrupulously tidy, yet there was still a sense of him here. It held more life than any of the other ornate and elaborate rooms they had been in. It was a boy’s room, complete with Quidditch posters, and a cabinet with his broom against the wall. An inkpot and paper still on the desk.

The bed was impeccably made, large and looming. He had slept there, possibly even right up to the night before it had all ended and he had disappeared. Malfoy had his back to her and she watched him reach for something within one of the drawers. It was a photograph of him and his parents. A simple one. His mother looked down at him indulgently. Hermione swallowed, feeling uncomfortable. It was strange to think that despite this house, the front, his youthful cruelty and horrid convictions, he had been loved.

She didn’t like it, seeing this. It was too real, too human.

He put the photo in his cloak pocket and turned around. He must have seen something in her expression because his features hardened. She wanted, quite fervently, to know what his thoughts were then. This man, standing in the room of a boy he’d once been, so very long ago.

She wanted to slip inside his skin and see this vast space through his own eyes. That terrified her.

“We should go,” he finally said, breaking the silence. “We’ve got a lot to… process.”

She nodded, following him out of his room. Relief flooded her at the thought of escaping this place, with its cloying and claustrophobic memories and questions. His words rattled in her brain, an understatement in the extreme.


	6. The Lies That Bind

The small clock in the kitchen ticked every second, a rhythm her heart yearned to follow. It was a normal sound, a steady sound, a recognition of the mundane in day to day life which never stopped. She felt, in more moments recently than she liked to admit, that she needed those reminders. Hermione’s gaze blinked up from the parchment before her – surrounded as it was by piles of books strewn across her kitchen table – to behold the mercurial man before her, staring.

“What?” she asked, her throat thick with strangled thoughts, the words sounding as though they had clawed their way up and passed her lips.

Shadows in his gaze shifted and he leaned back, still watching. “You went somewhere just now.” Curiosity coloured his tone, a hint at a softness she wasn’t familiar with. He seemed to realise as much because he looked back down at his notes, the veneer slipping in place, dismissing the moment.

She couldn’t adjust to this side of him, if indeed it was genuine. The many shades of Draco Malfoy were whirling in her mind, puzzle pieces shifting to find their place. The boy she had known was malicious, vindictive and conflicted, yet she had seen – on the odd occasion – something within that had drawn her to him. This man was different still, cold and removed mostly, a ghost of the cruel yet vibrant boy of before. Yet there were cracks if one looked close enough, and her brain couldn’t help but collect them, as though they meant something significant. As if there was still a _them_ in some form or other that extended beyond shared histories, whispered longing from a time ago, and the strangely forged partnership of now.

She couldn’t read him, and it scared her to wonder what hid beneath the cool exterior. He’d appeared to her as a broken soul that day in her hall, asking for help, something he never would have done before. Did people really change? Or was that boy still in there? She had seen none of the undercurrent of violence from him, which seemed to simmer on the cusp in his youth.

Violence was something that had coloured his life growing up, and she had often wondered how much had bled into his soul, and how much had been there to begin with. He’d been very physical with her then, yet he so very rarely touched her now, not even the most innocuous of gestures, and it made her wonder further at the thoughts veiled behind his steely resolve.

Hermione’s gaze shifted to his hands, pale and long fingered, still elegant, but with less of that manor-born impeccability. It teased her thoughts again with questions of where he had been and what he had done during those five years.

“This is getting us nowhere,” he finally declared. They had spent hours poring over the books secreted away from his family library, and yielded little to nothing. Whatever sinister happenings had taken root in the Malfoy family history – beyond those that she knew all too acutely – had been kept a closely guarded secret.

“It would help if we knew the name of the amulet, or anything at all about where it came from,” she conceded, snapping her thoughts back in place. “I’ve broadened my research at the Ministry to outside of England, in case there are any further cases that might help direct us.”

He simply nodded. His thoughts seemed adrift.

“There is one thing I’ve been thinking about.” She paused, and he seemed to read the hesitation that lingered in her tone.

His stare felt heavy on her skin as his gaze grew intent. “Just one?”

She felt colour bloom, a stain across her cheeks. She couldn’t reconcile these moments, when his icy façade would thaw somewhat and, despite the innocence of his words, she felt a heat dance on his tongue. She told herself it was the heady burn of memories he conjured when he looked at her with eyes that seemed darker than their normal clear grey.

She cleared her throat. “We need to speak to Lucius. Harry tried and they got nothing out of him but—”

He went completely still. “He won’t talk to you, and I certainly can’t walk into Azkaban.”

“I’ve interviewed prisoners before and maybe we won’t get anything more out of him, but don’t you think we have to try? He’s the only person alive that we know of who might actually be able to shed some light.” Her hands were pressed flat on the table, her shoulders pushed forward as she urged him to see reason.

He was silent for a beat, strain lingering in his gaze. His hand pushed back the overlong strands of his hair, and she watched the pale column of his throat as it bobbed. Rare signs of agitation.

“Fine.” He conceded. “But do you really think Potter is going to agree to let you go in there?”

Her gaze narrowed. “He won’t have much choice in the matter.”

He watched her, a hint of something teasing at his lips before he nodded.

 

***

 

Hermione checked her watch, it was near ten in the morning now, and the hours had flown by, the usual flurry of the Ministry offices was in full swing, but the fervour of those few days after Narcissa’s death had dissipated somewhat. There had been no new murders and people were knuckling down, attempting to stem the panic rising beyond their walls.

Hermione’s desk was piled high with various tomes of questionable usefulness. She had sent missives to several European Ministries requesting information about any similar murders that may have occurred within their borders, in the hope that she might be able to pin down something more concrete. She recognised that it would likely be some days before she heard back, but she still tore through her letters and memos with vigour.

“Hermione.” She jumped at Harry’s sudden appearance at her desk. He looked exhausted, but his weary gaze moved over the mess of her desk, a raised brow marring his otherwise placid demeanour.

“Sorry, Harry. I’m ready, shall we go?” She had arranged to speak with both Harry and the Minister this morning, an effort to pitch her idea.

Her friend nodded and they headed to Kingsley Shacklebolt’s office. He was silent for a moment, before he glanced at her side on. “You look tired, Hermione. Should I be concerned? You might be taking on too much…”

She snorted. “I could say the same of you. I’m fine… I just want us to make some sort of break in this. It feels like we’re treading water at the moment. Besides, we’ll all sleep better if that happens.”

“True enough,” he replied. “It’s just that you’ve been cloistered away and have hardly seen anyone beyond me, and that’s only because I work with you.” His tone was pointed.

“If I promise to check in more often, will you let this go?”

He smiled, chagrin creeping into his expression. “Maybe.” He gestured for her to go ahead as they arrived at the sumptuous office of the Minister for Magic.

Kingsley Shacklebolt was seated at the large mahogany desk, signing his life away with a furious hand and a quill. He paused in his ministrations at their arrival, and glanced up. “Harry, Hermione. Come in, take a seat. Any news?”

Hermione updated both men on her recent steps, suggesting they start to broaden the search across borders. As she explained, they had very little information on the cause of death, and something – anything – might turn up. They didn’t question this decision, despite not being aware of Dilly the house elf’s claim that the murderers were foreign. It was a constant challenge, keeping track of the weaving streams of this case, of what she knew yet could not say.

“Actually,” she paused, “the reason I wanted to speak with you both is Lucius Malfoy.” They both straightened in their seats and eyed her, waiting. “I want to speak with him.”

Harry jolted. “We’ve already tried that Hermione, and I don’t think—”

“Why?” asked the Minister, his shrewd gaze focused on her with interest.

“I know that you tried, Harry, but he is our only link to the family, so I feel that it’s worth another shot. Besides, let’s be honest, you’re probably the last person he would speak to, if indeed he’s not totally insane.”

He pushed back the unruly black hair from his forehead, frustration clear in his movements. “Why would he speak to you either?” His tone was bordering on incredulous.

“It’s a long shot, I know, and maybe he is crazy… but I think it’s worth a try. I’ve been poring over the research, Harry. I’m familiar with every aspect of this case and I’m trained to interview prisoners. I’ve done it before.”

“But this is Lucius Malfoy. And he certainly gave a good impression of being crazy. Azkaban does that to prisoners, Hermione… even now.”

“Perhaps, but a different face – Muggleborn even – might jolt something. We need to try at least one more time and no one other than you is more familiar with the case. So there’s no point suggesting one of the Aurors in your team. Besides, I’ve handled worse.”

She looked at him sharply, and his gaze softened somewhat. Kingsley, who had been silent throughout the exchange, cleared his throat.

“It can’t hurt,” he said. “When would you like to proceed?”

“Tomorrow, if possible. There’s no point in delaying.”

Harry looked defeated, but finally turned to her. “Fine. I’ll organise it. Full security and Room 3A so we can monitor the whole interview.”

“I don’t want anyone else in there; it would defeat the whole point. You’ll be able to watch everything and he’ll be fully restrained.”

His jaw was clenched, his posture stiff, but he relented nonetheless.

 

***

 

Later that evening, Hermione felt the flicker of her wards, a sign she had grown alarming accustomed to in a matter of days. It should disturb her that he showed no compunction in barrelling through her life in this way, but she supposed some things didn’t change that much after all. She had alerted Malfoy using the charmed galleons as soon as she left the Minister’s office, so she had been expecting him in this instance. She couldn’t help but reflect that although Harry had been in high dudgeon all afternoon about her plan, he didn’t even know the worst of it.

Hermione walked out to the hall to see Malfoy standing by the door, tension lining his shoulders. “Well?” he rasped. She didn’t think she would ever grow accustomed to the sight of him, tall and all-encompassing in the safe and sacred space of her home.

“It’s all set up. Harry and a few other Aurors will be in the other room, so I’ll have to do something to mask the conversation, but otherwise it should be fine.”

He nodded then and reached into his cloak pocket. She eyed him speculatively as he handed her a scrap of parchment. Ink bled around the roughly drawn lines of the amulet, its likeness undeniable.

“Props?” she queried. He simply shrugged. “I never thought of that,” she murmured, more to herself, but she noted the slight smirk that graced his features before the strain returned. A hint of that boy lurking once more beneath the surface.

His fingers clenched and she noticed he held something else. Her gaze was riveted to the scrap of paper as he held it out toward her. It was the photograph he had taken from his room at the Manor. Something lodged in her throat as she reached for it. He didn’t let go immediately, and her fingers brushed his, cold and searing upon her skin all at once.

“I’ll want that back,” he finally said, as he pulled away.

“Of course,” she whispered, her voice thick.

He nodded and turned to leave, a vision of seraphic white in the semi darkness of her hall, haunting as his grief seemed to shimmer at the very edges of him. The vision choked her.

“We’ll find them,” she said, and the fervour in her tone surprised her. “We will.”

His back was to her, but his hand stilled on the door before he turned to face her, his expression a blank canvas once again. “I rarely trust in promises, Granger. But I think you mean that.”

And then he was gone, leaving her to gaze upon the neatly folded photograph, noting how the crease fell with Lucius on one side, his wife and son on the other. Her gaze lingered for a while, watching Narcissa Malfoy watch her son. 

 

***

 

Her hands were clammy, the chill of Azkaban a lingering plague that seemed to burrow through the layers of her skin and seep into the marrow of her bones. Though the Dementors no longer manned the hollow halls of the prison island, the decay of so many years seemed to linger in the air.

The prison itself had been rebuilt for the most part. It was a proper structure now, with solid walls and bright lights that lined the halls of the newer part of the building. Interrogation rooms had been created to enable such meetings as the one she was about to undertake. The cells hadn’t been changed too much; though they had been refortified, the dank darkness still permeated that part of the prison. All cells were enchanted and hit wizards manned the halls to oversee the prisoners. And even those who could escape would never get off the treacherous island alive.

Hermione had already checked in as per procedure and was now being led to the interrogation room by two almost cheerful hit wizards. They seemed somewhat buoyed by the presence of a clean female in their midst. She reflected that it must be a rather desolate existence spending so much time in this place.

Much to her relief, Harry had been called away on an urgent matter. He had tried to delay the interview, unhappy at not being present, which she had told him was utterly ridiculous. In truth, she was more than relieved at this development. While she might be able to hoodwink some of the guards here during the closely watched conversation, getting one over on Harry would have been substantially more difficult.

“Here you are, Miss. He’s already in there and he’s chained so there’s no risk of him harming you. We’ll be watching of course, but if you have any trouble you just need to raise your hand and we’ll be right in. Potter requested a guard go in with you, but I understand you refused that offer.” The hit wizard glanced at her for clarification.

“That’s correct,” she said simply, modulating her voice somewhat to disguise the bubble of nerves simmering in her blood.

It wasn’t that Lucius Malfoy could harm her that caused the tension to press like a weight upon her skin. It was the reality that so much of her plan was fraught with potential issues. If he lashed out; if he didn’t respond at all. The latter was her worst fear, because that would mean that they were back to square one.

She pushed open the door, her gaze pinned immediately to the gaunt and bedraggled man chained to a sterile table in the small room. She closed the door with a snap and observed him for a moment. His once gleaming hair – the exact hue of his son’s, which she had felt slide through her fingers like corn silk – was lank and limp. The austere and cruel man she recalled vividly had been reduced to a mess of muttered words and vacant eyes, twitching somewhat in his seat.

He didn’t appear to have noticed her presence as yet. Though she cleared her throat and smoothed one damp palm to the fabric of her skirt as she moved closer, he didn’t acknowledge her. She sat before him, silent for a beat as his gaze swivelled back and forth between two distant points over her shoulder.

“Lucius Malfoy. My name is Hermione Granger, and I’m a Senior Research with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic.”

She received no response. Her fingers itched, tightening around the wand in her hand as she whispered a silent charm to distort her words to any listeners. There was still a fairly good chance, if he did respond in any way, that she would have some difficulty explaining what had really happened in this room, but it was a risk she had to take. At least for the moment, while so much was hanging in the balance.

“We’ve met before, Lucius. In the Ministry of Magic, and other times still. I was there with Harry Potter.” Though he appeared not to hear her words she noted a slight tightening of the skin around his eyes.

“I know your son,” she continued, watching closely for further nonverbal cues. “I know he didn’t die that day in the Forbidden Forest.” His jaw clenched and Hermione felt a slight burst of hope in her chest. Perhaps he was mad for the most part, but there was at least a shred of sentient thought there and she felt sure that Draco was at the heart of it.

“I understand you have been informed about your wife Narcissa’s murder.” He didn’t as much as blink. “I’m assisting the Ministry in solving her case, and that of many others murdered by the same hands. But I’m not only working with the Ministry, I—”

She paused, speaking the next part out loud caused her pulse to race, the fine hairs to raise upon her skin. No one knew this, no one beyond her and Malfoy. There was something safe in that – though the situation was anything but safe. She had managed secrets before, had stemmed the flow of their poison from seeping into other parts of her life. It was only internally that she suffered the penance for that. And she couldn’t help but wonder now how much sharing secrets in this moment, with this man, might rupture everything, causing truths to bleed across the carefully segmented parts of her.

“I’m working with your son.” His fingers, which had been twitching upon the wood, creating an erratic tempo, paused for a second before resuming their rhythm. “He came to me after Narcissa’s death, seeking my help. I know that she saved him that day, and that he’s been in hiding ever since. I know a lot actually, so does he, but there are things we think you know that could help us.”

Finally, she pulled out a collection of photographs, the most important of which sat amid a collection depicting the other victims. It blended in the mass of images as she spread them across the table before him. Lucius Malfoy stopped twitching, his gaze swivelling until it rested on the photograph of his family. A pant of repressed breath left him as he stared at the image of his wife and son.

“There’s more. The people who did this, a woman and a man, bear a striking resemblance to your family. They broke through the Manor wards, and killed Narcissa, but they were looking for Draco too.” His gaze didn’t move from the photo and she wondered if he’d heard her at all.

“Draco and I were there, we spoke to the house elves who told us that the people who did this were foreign, that your wife was scared, and that the woman was wearing—”

“A Mudblood in my house,” he rasped, his voice scratchy from lack of use, but scathing nonetheless. His gaze lifted and burned through her, but she refused to look away. He had spoken. Harry was wrong. Lucius Malfoy wasn’t crazy; he was protecting secrets. More insidious than her own perhaps, but secrets could be siphoned out, if one could find even the tiniest of holes.

“The woman was wearing this,” she spoke as she slid the scrap of parchment, depicting the amulet, across the table toward him.

His head jerked back as his gaze flittered over the roughly sketched image. His breathing grew laboured, his gaze suddenly wild, and his lips formed an endless stream of silent words.

“These people have killed your wife, and many other purebloods. They are after your son and if he is caught by them he will be killed too. If we don’t prove his innocence and the Ministry finds him, he will end up in here alongside you. Tell me what you know.” Her voice had taken on an urgency, and his wild gaze rose to flicker between her eyes.

“Desmarais,” he croaked.

“Is that a name?” she asked, leaning in toward him. “It’s French, isn’t it?” She shifted closer still. “Tell me.”

His gaze shuttered and his fingers trembled, his head shaking.

She tried for a few more minutes, before resignation set in. Finally she stood to leave, deciding that little though it was, they had something to go on. A place, a name perhaps. And the knowledge that whatever burning secret this was, Lucius Malfoy would rather take it to the grave, or his son’s as was the more likely case.

“Why?” he finally croaked, his voice carrying over her shoulder just as she reached the door. She glanced back, her lip curling at the sight of him. She knew what he was asking.

“Because whatever kind of man he is, your son is that because of you. And perhaps,” she paused, her blood pounding in her ears, “he deserves the chance to be something more than that.”

 She left then, not daring to look back at him. She bypassed security and endless curious glances, eager to escape the chilling confines of the prison, to calm her racing pulse and trembling hands. She didn’t stop to reflect upon the strange fact that her resolve had somehow become more than just saving the Wizarding community from a potentially great peril, about doing the right thing, and had somehow become about saving one man, if she could.

 

***

 

Her nerves were fraught. She didn’t go back to the Ministry after the interrogation, and she didn’t go home either. She’d found herself sitting in a park and gazing at the endless sea of green, sifting through a tumult of thoughts, anxieties that nibbled away at the softer parts of her. Everything was moving fast around her, but she felt sluggish, overwhelmed by the weight of it all. It seemed real now; after meeting with Lucius, it had somehow made her see the true ramifications of what was happening.

How was she here again, in a situation beyond her capacity to control? She had always prided herself on the ability to compartmentalise when she had to, to focus on the task at hand. But she was human too, and people – herself often – tended to forget that. She strived so hard to contain the clamour within, but it was creeping on her again. The uncertainty of years before, when she had lost sight of her rigid lines and where she stood and why.

She had come into this knowing that Malfoy was dangerous to her. He wasn’t a good man, not strictly speaking. Perhaps he wasn’t dangerous now in the way he had been back then, when she was alone and vulnerable and he was the face of the other side of their war. A villain who had somehow become the shadowy grey of in-between to her. Now she didn’t fear that he would hurt her in that way, that he would kill her – indeed, she knew with a piercing sort of clarity that he wouldn’t, perhaps couldn’t. He was as intricately bound in this web of deceit and secrets as she was.

But he could hurt her in other ways. Shatter the flimsy walls she had constructed, obscure her purpose and taint the very picture of her life and how she fit in it. That realisation, once more, that somehow she had imbued him with the power to do that, terrified her. Whether he knew it or not, she wasn’t sure. But she had to remember her wards, her internal ones, lest he break through those as carelessly as he had the ones around her house.

It was dark by the time she arrived home, though it was only shortly after seven. She knew Harry had probably gone crazy wondering what had happened. The recording of the interview wouldn’t have reflected anything that should set her off. She noted the red glow that shimmered around the perimeter. Malfoy was there, just as she had suspected he would be. She found him in the sitting room, his back to her, and she could see the tension lining his shoulders as he gazed out her window.

“Potter sat outside for an hour. I take it you caused quite the fuss.” He turned to her, the light catching the gleam in his gaze, causing the shadows to deepen in the angles of his face.

She swallowed. “I didn’t go back to the Ministry after…”

He shifted, his hands sliding into his pockets. “I gathered as much. Well?”

She felt exhausted and exhilarated at once as she recounted the conversation – a generous description, she mused. She was careful to leave out the parting moments, couldn’t bear the thought of his incisive gaze peeling back the layers of her and finding her soft underbelly.

“Desmarais,” he repeated. “France makes sense. There was an old property there, part of the Malfoy estate, but it’s been abandoned for decades. The family heritage, going a long way back admittedly, is French.”

Her gaze narrowed. “You never mentioned that before!”

“I didn’t know if it was relevant. Perhaps it still isn’t, though I don’t believe in coincidences.”

She didn’t either. They were silent for a moment before he spoke again, and she noted that he’d moved somewhat closer, seeming to swallow the space around him.

“What else did he say?” His voice was a husk of a sound. “You aren’t easily rattled… I should know.” His gaze moved over her face, seeking the smallest of reactions. Searching for something she hoped he wouldn’t find.

“Nothing, I’m just—” Her comment was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door.

“Hermione? I see the light under the door.” It was Seamus. Her gaze shifted to Malfoy, panic flaring deep in her gut. He stared at her, the seconds stretching, though his expression was unreadable. Finally he moved, melting from the residual darkness in the room and down the hall to the study.

She took a deep breath and opened the door, her thoughts in a scramble. Awareness of the man down the hall burning her, especially because it was Seamus who had arrived. And Seamus knew truths that she could barely stand to hear. She opened the door and peered out at him. A sheepish expression lined his features, but the overriding expression was one of relief.

“Good to see you’re still alive, haven’t fallen into a ditch somewhere…” He leaned his head against the doorframe and surveyed her, as though to make sure she was indeed still in one piece.

She hung her head, guilt coating her tongue like a poison. “Come on in. I know I’ve been a bit absent lately.” She shot him an apologetic look. “Harry put me in my place only yesterday. It’s just a bit frantic at the moment. We’re overstretched with everything going on.”

He followed her into the kitchen, leaning over the bench to look at her, his gaze as steady as ever. That was his way. Seamus had an earthy quality that always seemed to rein her in, stabilise her, no matter the madness of any situation. She should have seen him in the last two weeks, a period when that balance to her equilibrium was most required, but if she was truly honest she’d been avoiding him.

He had an uncanny ability to see through the layers of her to the truth, particularly in situations like this. That was precisely why, in large part, she had been prevaricating. Normally they would catch up for a drink or dinner at least once a week, but she had cited long hours at the Ministry as her excuse. In truth it was the fact that not only had she been busy dealing with Malfoy’s sudden appearance in her life, and everything that entailed, but Seamus was more than aware of the fact that, for her, the name Malfoy had the power to weave a web around her, which she found hard to see through.

“We’re all a bit worried,” he finally said, his gaze roving across her features in much the same way Malfoy’s had just moments before.

“All? Or do you mean Harry?” She quirked a brow, leaning over the bench toward him, her elbows resting against the stone top.

He shrugged. “He’s worried you’re overtaxing yourself on this case. I think you know why I‘m worried.” His look spoke volumes and she glanced away.

“I’m fine.”

“You went to see Lucius Malfoy and then disappeared for hours. That doesn’t suggest _fine_.”

“So Harry did send you.” Her tone was accusing, justifiably. While she was blessed with wonderful friends who cared for her, would do everything for her, she hated the way they tried to cosset her as though she were a fragile bird in need of protection. They knew she had struggled after the War, and it was something they never seemed to forget. Only Seamus knew why though, and that in itself was a battle she was weary of fighting.

“Can you blame him? Merlin, Hermione, we’ve been through this before. I thought you’d agreed to put it behind you. Malfoys again, really?”

She took a deep breath, frustration burning through her. “It’s my job, Seamus. What do you expect me to do? People are being murdered, regardless of the Malfoy connection. I’d be this involved anyway.”

His expression was sceptical. “You’re a researcher – are you saying you get this involved in every case? We both know that’s not true. You’re taking this on like it’s personal, like it means—”

“I’m—”

He interrupted her swiftly, his voicing rising in volume. “I’m worried about you! You were so messed up over him; do you have any idea how much that killed me to see? Please walk away this time and for good. He’s dead, and I think even in life he did more damage than he ever had a right to. You can’t fix everyone.”

“Seamus,” she whispered. She knew what he meant, what he wanted. Once she had wanted the same thing, but events had tarnished her, worn away at pure and simple things, had reshaped her so that she wasn’t the same girl who nurtured romantic notions of kind warm boys as she once had. She hated that, because Seamus was good for her, good to her, and by virtue of his shoulder in that torrid year when Ron and Harry were gone, he had become an irreplaceable part of her life.

She had hoped – they both had – that when she closed the lid on searching for Malfoy two years ago, she would have closure and that something could and would blossom between them once more. But there was something jagged and broken in her, something that couldn’t be fixed. She couldn’t let go, clearly never had despite all her resolve. She couldn’t pretend, not with this wonderful man before her, who deserved something infinitely better than what she could give him.

That was why Harry had sent him. While her friends had been somewhat surprised by the nature of her relationship with Seamus upon their return, a collective belief had grown that the two of them were somehow inevitable. Harry couldn’t understand her reluctance, yet another thing she could never fully explain to him.

Seamus simply looked at her, urgency clear in his gaze. “I’d kill him again if given the chance. I’d kill him again for whatever he did, whatever hold he has that seems to haunt you.” Though it was Ron who had uttered the hex that sent Malfoy flying that day, the fervour in Seamus’s gaze underlined how much he wished he’d been the one.

“Seamus—”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Fine. I’ll drop it for now. Just don’t disappear on me again.” He raked a hand through his close-cropped hair. “Please.”

Something burned in her stomach. A longing for the time when he had the potential to be her everything, when though the world was crumbling around them, she had felt a clarity, a simplicity in her desires. But that time was gone, and she feared this game she played was one she could never hope to win.

She kissed his cheek when they reached the door, and he raised a calloused thumb to trace across her cheekbone before he turned and left. Hermione stared at the door for a moment, lost in thoughts of what ifs and whys. Then realisation trickled through the fog of her confusion, and she scurried from the hall to the study. Anxiety whirled within, mixing with the burning dread that seared her to her core. The thought of Malfoy standing in that room, listening to Seamus, to her, scorched and sickened her. Those were her secrets, her shames, and she couldn’t bear the thought of certain truths being laid to bare before him.

She pushed open the study door, and the breath that had stilled in her lungs left her. It was empty. Wind from the now open window pushed and pulled at the curtains, the chill released causing the fine hairs across her arms to raise in response.

Her gaze travelled to the note board, moved across scraps of parchment which had been added. The words Desmarais and France written in his neat penmanship, underlined to denote the emphasis. She swallowed and glanced back at the window, her heart still racing. How much had he heard before he left?

She didn’t sleep a wink that night, visions of piercing grey eyes and a shredding agony within chased all hope of it away.


	7. A Light in the Abyss

The room was dark but for the solitary flicker of a candle perched on a large wooden desk. The young man seated there stared at the slow drip, the trickle sliding to its base. He watched the wick, felt time begin to blend and blur and siphon away with the hypnotic pooling of wax.

There was once a time when – had the shape of his life not changed so considerably – he would have sat there rightfully, a cruel king on his throne built of bones and dust and despair. That was what he wanted then, had thought was the defining mark of glory and a life lived true. The young man glanced around the room, felt the emptiness like a tangible thing, cloying memories of what was and what might have been. It meant nothing now. This house, this labyrinth of rooms and halls, with no life save the house elves who guarded it in the hope of his return.

It wasn’t the first time he had returned to the grand house atop the hill. He’d been there once before, with her, on the night that set the course for where they would now tread. And twice since then. He had thought to seek comfort from these hollow rooms, craved the familiarity of home. But with the graceful matriarch but a memory, his legacy now a hollow shameful thing, there was nothing here but the echo of his thoughts and the whisper of ghosts that lingered.

He reflected on the hows and whys and what ifs that had brought him to this moment. The choices he made, and others before him, that set the trajectory of a life, once shallow perhaps, but now as elusive as air through his fingers. The wrath that pooled in his gut, a beast within that roared and licked and raged, would abate and return, an endless ebb and flow of conflicting emotions. That struggle for control wrought a daily battle, at war with the all-consuming guilt he felt when he pictured his mother’s face.

The only spark in that perpetual twilight, a pair of tawny eyes that lit fiercely when challenged, a mouth that pursed in thought. A girl, a woman now, who had somehow become a part of that hazy light, keeping him from the shadows eternal, drawing him closer to answers. When he first heard news of his mother’s death, _she_ had been the one he sought for answers, weaving himself back into a web of their making. Intricate and unyielding, it held him still, even as he fought to free himself entirely. The binds were tight; he had come to learn that in the long and lonely hours of the past few years. He had acknowledged many truths – some he still did not wholly understand.

Her urgent words of the previous night, uttered under breath to that other man – her friend – raced through him. Yet more questions, but ones he could not satisfy. He once thought what flowed through her veins was a poison, but he now knew it was fire, not a taint, that roared in her blood. It whispered of pure intentions and it sickened him still. And yet it lit a solitary candle in a room of darkness. The poison was his own.

It revealed a weakness so deeply entrenched within him that it soured the taste of food on his tongue, turned his world to a pit of rage and flame and ash. He didn’t want her to look at him and see something to be fixed, didn’t want to think of himself as being worthy of redemption. He wasn’t. He was not the hero of children’s bed time stories, a saviour with a cause. His choices, such as they were, had led to this, an empty house and its tang of regret. And yet within the sealed ramparts of his mind, he clawed at those burning walls, striving for something beyond. Somehow, in his bones, he knew that wherever this trail led them, its winding path wrenched him closer to the fire.

He had seen the line drawn, an impassable canyon between here and there, and known unequivocally what it meant, who he was and why. But she had slipped under his skin, an irresistible force, and dragged him through the murky undertow to that shadowy between, where white was not white and black was not black. And now he didn’t know quite what he was. A phantom. A shadow lurking on the periphery. When he thought of her – her sharp-eyed gaze, the wildness contained beneath the calm – he wondered how she had not found her way back from those shadows. He wondered why she had stayed, what she had been waiting for.

He thought of the times when he had lingered hidden on the cusp, had yearned to walk into the warm glow of her home, to no longer stand amid shadow in the cold beyond her window panes. And he knew that though he could watch her now, could see the light spill across her face and the parting of her lips, three breaths from his own, in truth nothing had changed.

He was not a good man.

 

* * *

 

The rough edges of a large gold coin bit into the tender skin of her palm. It was the only outward glimpse of her frustration, which had mounted these last two days. Hermione breathed deeply and loosened her grip, feeling the coin’s heavy weight drop into her pocket. She blinked dry eyes and pushed back the mass of unruly curls from the base of her neck. Leaning back in her chair, she scanned the vast space of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, noting the sluggish movement of witches and wizards and flying memos.

The Ministry was unusually quiet given the mayhem of recent weeks, the low thrum of voices a deception. The stillness wasn’t real; it was the calm before a storm. While the general public had been whipped into a frenzy of fear in light of the unsolved murders, the lack of recent bodies had stemmed the tide somewhat. Hermione glanced at the array of letters littering her desk, the pile of tomes stacked haphazardly around them. Letters in response to her recent enquiry of several foreign ministries about crimes within their borders, which might contain parallels to the murders associated with Althea Malfoy’s amulet. Only one was of interest, though Hermione had been unaware of the connection to France at the time she put her ink-tipped quill to parchment.

The French Ministry had yielded some fruitful information, though Hermione had gnawed away at her resolve all morning over the appropriate next steps. She knew that she would need to tell Harry and Shacklebolt about her discoveries soon enough, but with so many questions still unanswered, she felt sure that the time had not yet come. The consequences of revealing her involvement with Malfoy, and his part in this case, would be wide reaching and possibly detrimental to the discovery of any answers. It seemed a weak excuse, a selfish desire to delay revealing the intricate layers of lies she had stacked like a house of cards.

Hermione had contacted Malfoy twice over the past two days, using the heavy gold coin in her pocket, though both attempts had gone unanswered. She tried valiantly not to think about why that might be. A conversation, the pooling of truths laid bare at her feet, and his presence in another room. Keen ears and open windows. What had he heard? The churning within her had not abated. They were not words for him to collect and dissect, to find meaning within, rightly or wrongly. They were her secrets, her shames, and even she could not wholly define them.

Her thoughts with respect to him were a jumble of memories, of moments, so at odds with the here and now. They were an acknowledgement that she did not know her own intentions. It was what scared her most, the uncertainty. The only thing she did know, with any sort of clarity, was that they must forge ahead, her and Malfoy, to focus on the path, no matter what might muddle their way.

That path now led to France, the only place where more questions and more answers might be uncovered. There were things to be done in the coming hours, a list that ran through her mind, an endless cycle of priorities and checked boxes. She only hoped that Malfoy, coming to similar conclusions, had not decided to proceed without her. Regardless, she had spent the morning, since reading the letter – and indeed since the word Desmarais had fallen from Lucius Malfoy’s lips – twisting and turning the puzzle pieces together.

It would start with a conversation with Harry, and yet more lies, the weight of which continued to link like chains around her throat, cinching tighter every day.

 

* * *

 

Hermione was in the kitchen when she felt the tang of magic in the air, a shimmer gleaming around the edges of the window before her. Nursing a glass of wine and deep in thought, she recognised that feeling in the very centre part of her – relief, coupled with the sharp barb of anxiety. It would seem their game continued.

She didn’t turn around, though she knew he now stood in the doorway to the kitchen. He hadn’t made a sound, but the shifting of molecules in the air – as though to accommodate his overpowering presence – and the fine hair that raised on her arms, told the truth.

“Granger.” His voice was midnight, the fine rasp of a blade against her skin.

She settled her glass on the counter and turned to face him, noting the shadows that lingered beneath his eyes, and the tight line of his mouth. “I wasn’t sure you would turn up,” she finally said. Her cool voice held none of the questions that hovered precariously on her tongue.

Though he looked strained and exhaustion lined his features – from lack of sleep or the weight of everything, she wasn’t sure – his gaze was incisive. It cleaved through layers of skin and muscle, the bloody mass within, a beacon for the truth that lay in the marrow of her bones.

“I was preoccupied,” he said evenly, his eyes falling to her glass. “But the time wasn’t in vain. I have information… about France.”

She didn’t want to ponder what had him preoccupied, but she revelled in the offer in his voice. A pretence. A suggestion that they were here simply to focus on the unravelling of a mystery far beyond them. An even keel. One she very much needed.

Hermione released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “Good. So do I.”

She gestured to the small table, and he slid silently into the offered chair, eyes already drawn to the papers and maps that littered the surface of the table, snagging on a hand sketched drawing. He blanched.

“The French Minister’s response arrived today,” she said. “At least 12 similar crimes between 1949 and 1952. They occurred in groups of three or so during a period of a few weeks, then nothing for nearly a year, until it started up again. Half-bloods and Muggleborns mostly.”

Malfoy’s eyes darted from the map to her, his throat bobbing. A sign of his inner thoughts, which he usually wouldn’t reveal so readily.

“There’s a tiny Wizarding village, about 40 minutes outside of Avignon. It doesn’t have a name from what I can tell, but locals call it _L'oubli_ , The Forgotten, I think. It’s more of a hamlet, really. It’s the only Wizarding community in the area, and they believe it was one of the locals from there, though little was done in terms of investigation. That supposition likely came later.” She paused and cleared her throat. “There were also significant incidents of Muggle torture, of missing person cases from the wider area and into the city.”

Silence settled, a heavy blanket of oppression, as she watched for his response.

“So it is in the blood,” he murmured. Her gaze darted from one eye to the other. Before she could question the statement clearly not meant for her ears, he pulled out several documents from within the folds of his cloak. “That lines up with my own findings. The property I mentioned? It’s in that village. I found the information, what little there is, in my father’s paperwork in the family vault.”

“Tell me you did not—”

He held up a hand to interrupt her. “There’s no mention of the family having lived in the property for generations… but the timing would suggest someone did. And as you now know, only a Malfoy could have gained access.”

“Who?” It fell from her lips like a breath, faint and halting.

“My grandfather, Abraxas Malfoy. He would have been our age, or perhaps a bit younger.”

“You think he committed these crimes.”

The barest trace of a smile, a bitter one, curved his lips. “Do you doubt it? You know my family’s legacy well enough.”

She did. She also saw the battle he tried to conceal: a question of the inevitable. _It is in the blood_. The words a whispered taunt, dropping like stones in the pit of her belly.

Hermione smoothed her hands over the letter before her. “Right. So, Abraxas may have spent time there to… indulge.” She winced at the thought, felt Malfoy’s watchful stare like a caress, noting every movement. “The timeline tees up with incidents that occurred here in England, presumably when he was in the country. But at some point, the amulet was lost, or possibly stolen. We need to fill in those blanks, find out who took the amulet and why they are now targeting his descendants. Why they are now targeting _you_.”

She glanced up at him and he looked as though he wanted to say something then, his lips parted on a breath, but he closed his mouth and shifted his gaze over her shoulder.

“I’ve made arrangements,” she said. “We need to go to France.”

There was no trace of surprise as his steady gaze fell on her once more. She wondered how much he would argue the point. He didn’t.

“Indeed,” he murmured instead. “Arrangements,” he smirked, and her eyes traced the starkly familiar expression. “I suppose that means you have a plan.”

Hermione pushed back her shoulders. “Of course.”

 

* * *

 

It was a few minutes before seven, and Hermione was wide awake, watching the weak and watery rays of first light breaking through overhead. She hardly slept at all in the few hours afforded following Malfoy’s departure in the early hours of that morning. After unveiling their findings, they spent some time working over the initial phase of their journey. Hermione had felt no small degree of discomfort at how threadbare it was, but there was only so much forward planning they could do without more information.

After some discussion, they had agreed to Apparate to Dijon, the beautiful capital of France’s Burgundy region. Apparition was fraught at the best of times, and though it would be simpler to arrive much closer to their destination, it was the only location she was familiar enough with, having spent time in the historic city one summer in her youth. Despite his claimed heritage, and wide reaching travels during the years of his exile, Malfoy had never been to France. When quizzed on this strange fact, he simply said that Lucius had been vehemently against visiting. Yet more strange layers to untangle.

From Dijon, they would have to drive the rest of the way. Malfoy had looked somewhat alarmed by this prospect, but as Hermione had assured him she could drive – admittedly, not well – he acquiesced quietly enough. A few well-placed charms would smooth the passage, she knew; she had seen it done often enough. He did, however, question why her absence wouldn’t raise alarms, and she filled him in on her conversation with Harry. Her friend had readily accepted her claim of stress, suggesting she take a few days to decompress. His curious and perceptive gaze had been all too watchful after her visit to Azkaban. It made her wonder just how much Seamus had revealed during their many conversations about her welfare.

She couldn’t help but wonder if it was all too easy, the pieces falling into place with minimal encouragement. She tried not to reflect too much on that, given the hazy nature of what would come next. Instead she agreed with Harry’s recommendation, and spent the remaining part of the afternoon finalising the details. She ventured through Muggle London to exchange some of the small next egg of Muggle currency she had from her parents, which would be necessary for their journey.

Now it was simply a matter of waiting. Glancing at her watch, Hermione stood from her position on the front porch of her house, a small carry bag settled at her feet. Right on time, she noted, as she eyed Malfoy appearing, darkness and light given form as he emerged from the trees surrounding. He stopped before her, glancing down at her bag.

“Ready?”

“As ever,” she said, trying valiantly to curb the restless itch of her fingers.

He frowned briefly and spoke, as though the words were wrenched from him against his will. “I don’t like side-along Apparition. When I’m not leading, that is.”

Hermione felt her lips curve into something like a smile, felt his watchful stare tracing their shape. “Somehow, that does not surprise me. But the concession… that does.”

He merely shrugged, and reached out a pale hand to hers. She swallowed, her focus shifting to the smooth brush of cold skin against her clammy palm. She looked up then, and held his gaze – so intent and searching – and thought of their destination.

The world shifted underfoot, a whirl of colour and sound that pulled her from herself. The only steadying reminder, his skin on hers and the piercing grey of his irises which pinned her in place as the world eddied around them.

Hermione’s feet slammed to the ground beneath her, and it was only Malfoy’s firm grip that kept her standing upright as her vision shifted and settled. He released her quickly and stepped back, gazing dispassionately at the unstimulating grey cinder block that surrounded them. Hermione cleared her throat and scanned the vicinity for witnesses. If her estimations were correct, they presently stood in a dark pocket of the car park beneath the opulent Grand Hotel La Cloche Dijon in the city’s centre.

Malfoy raised a brow as his gaze moved back to her. “And this is what you recall most vividly from your visit? A dull prison filled with…” he seemed to search for the word, “automobiles?”

She pressed her lips together firmly, her hands dusting invisible lint from her. “Whatever you do, don’t talk to anyone. No one says ‘automobiles’. They’re cars.” She followed the movement of his shoulders, which stiffened in response. “And it’s not a prison. It’s the car park for the hotel I stayed at with my parents – a beautiful one, I might add. It’s also the only place I could think of to Apparate to safely without a hundred Muggles spotting us.”

“Cars,” he muttered with distaste, eyeing a particularly small one parked close by.

Hermione watched him speculatively. Though he no longer donned his customary robes, and was instead dressed simply enough in trousers and a finely stitched black shirt, he still looked other worldly.

“I think it’s best if, once we get to the reception desk, you stay out of sight and let me handle things. Actually, we could do with making a few changes to your appearance. Having you hovering around looking,” she waved vaguely at him, and received a narrow-eyed look in response, “like that… won’t help. Especially if you keep looking at everything around you like it’s about to launch an attack.”

“I’ve been in the Muggle world before,” he snarled under his breath, clearly affronted by her suggestions.

She chose not to question that claim. The menacing posture coupled with the sharp gaze reminded her of a caged beast prowling in wait.

Minutes later, having successfully navigated the winding trek through the car park and into the lift, with minimal comments from her companion, she walked toward the concierge desk. Given the early hour, the richly decorated reception area was relatively free of tourists. Malfoy had thankfully slinked somewhere out of sight, though that did not set her nerves completely at ease.

“Bonjour Mademoiselle,” the perfectly coiffed concierge greeted her with a smile.

She smiled back, with a small amount of chagrin. “Bonjour, parlez-vous anglais? Désolée, mon français n'est pas bon.”

The friendly man, who seemed somewhat charmed by her efforts, smiled warmly as he slipped into flawless, albeit heavily accented, English. “Oui, how may I help you?”

“I was hoping you could give me directions to the nearest rental car agency. I plan to do some exploring around the region,” she explained.

The concierge bobbed his head in a nod and, with a flourish, unfurled a map. “There are many beautiful sights in the city, but by car you can reach some of the wineries and small villages.”

He continued chatting away, while marking the location of the hotel, and the short walk to the rental car agency. Hermione flushed when he asked, a somewhat playful glint in his eye, whether she was travelling alone.

As though her travel companion was somehow gifted with supernatural hearing, she felt a charge slip down her spine at his sudden arrival, standing much too close to be comfortable. The charming smile of the concierge slipped several notches at whatever expression he perceived on the face of the man behind her.

“No. She’s not.” The response was clipped and pointed, enough to make the concierge stand straighter and slide the map across to her with a tight-lipped smile.

Hermione did not dare look at Malfoy until they were outside. Though the air was cool enough, the sun shone brightly as she squinted down the street, then glanced at him.

“You were supposed to wait outside, as we agreed.” She unfolded the map, measuring the walk to the agency, before glancing back at him. “And you didn’t need to be so… rude.”

“As _you_ agreed,” he said coolly. “You were taking too long.”

Exasperated, and feeling somewhat desperate at the thought of the days to come, and how they might navigate them, she pushed her shoulders back and spun on her heel.

 

* * *

 

The world blurred, a rush of distorted green beyond the rain soaked window of the small Nissan Micra that sped along near empty roads. Though her hands rested on the steering wheel, the car was charmed well enough that they had driven smoothly out of Dijon, with little input from either of its passengers. The trip had been long, several hours cooped up as they watched people and cars and buildings melt into back roads that dipped and rose amid vineyards, fields and open space, merging only briefly with civilisation at times when they passed through small towns on the winding route to their destination.

Although they originally planned to stop in Avignon, they had altered their plan at the suggestion of the helpful attendant at the rental car agency. They now travelled to the small village of Saint Remy de Provence, in the northern foothills of the Alpilles Mountains, a mere half hour from the city, but much more accessible with a car. Hermione had jumped at the suggestion, not entirely comfortable with navigating yet another city in their charmed vehicle.

She shifted somewhat in her seat, stiffness lingering in her bones from hours cramped in the small space. They had stopped for a short break in the far outskirts of Lyon, to freshen up and source some food, before piling back into the car. As she rubbed her tender wrists, the map, previously perched on her lap, slipped sideways to fall at Malfoy’s feet. She glanced at his awkward position, recalling the look of utmost contempt as he first curled his body to fit in the confined space. She’d choked back a laugh at the initial sight of his long legs bunched high to make room. He’d simply slid her a sidelong glare.

The silence had been heavy in the hours they’d spent cocooned. And while her instinct was to fill the void, she didn’t know quite what to say. He was sleeping at present, or giving a very good impression of it, and the softer part of her resolve didn’t want to wake him or make any sudden movement. The constant exhaustion was clear in the bruise of faint purple beneath his eyes, marring the otherwise flawless plains of milk white skin. She wondered how long it had been since he’d had a full night sleep. Since before his mother’s death? Or longer, during the mysterious years of his absence?

Hermione adjusted the watch at her wrist, time slipping by slowly as they passed yet more sodden fields, the grey sky overhead a murky reflection of her thoughts. Slowly, glancing at the even huff of his breath, she leaned over him, reaching for the folded map at his feet. Her fingers grazed the crumbled paper when she felt a cold hand snap around her arm in a vice grip. She startled, and glanced up to his face, pulling away, as his hand slipped from her arm.

“Sorry, I—”

Eyes still on her, he reached down to grab the map, passing it to her wordlessly. She watched him, the alert and piercing expression in his eyes a suggestion that he had indeed been awake. Or was perhaps so well trained as to respond to a threat, even in his sleep.

She murmured a thank you, still disconcerted by the thickness of the air in the small car, the imprint of his grip on her arm still tingling with awareness.

“Are we close?” he asked, his voice catching roughly at the edges of her composure.

Hermione swallowed and glanced at her watch before unfurling the map. “We’re not that far now. Another hour, at a guess.”

He nodded, adjusting his posture slightly. His gaze fell on her watch, curiosity lining his features. “Your watch is different,” he murmured. “You usually wear the brown one.” She stared at him. _Different_. The word was a faint echo in her ears. That he was so observant shouldn’t have disconcerted her as much as it did.

“It was a present from… someone… for my last birthday,” she said quietly, though her voice seemed to carry through the heavy air. “I don’t always wear it.” She alternated between Seamus’s gift and the one her parents gave her many years ago, the brown one she’d worn while at Hogwarts.

Malfoy was silent for a beat, his eyes reflecting a myriad of things she couldn’t quite discern. “I always wondered why that never happened. Finnigan, I mean.”

Her breath stilled. Murky waters and overheard conversations danced through her thoughts. She looked at him sharply.

“You weren’t the only one keeping tabs over the years,” he said finally. His gaze seemed to burn through the air around her. Shrinking the already small space to nothing but him and her and an awareness of dangerous territory.

Who was he, this man? Quiet and cold. Vacant one moment, and then fiercely present the next. Jaded, she had presumed. But this new Malfoy, with these unfamiliar and contradictory layers, had a fine grasp on control that he hadn’t bothered with in his youth. An awareness of repercussions, perhaps. He’d always known the power of words, had wielded them with a vicious delight when they hit their mark. He still knew the power they held. But these were more damning than others that had fallen from his lips.

He watched her, his jaw clenched as though to rein more in, lest they slip passed his lips against his will. Defiance lingered in his features, in preparation for how she might interpret the shape of those small few words, and what they might mean.

“A lot has happened since then,” she said finally.  

He simply nodded. Silence reigned once more, and she licked her dry lips, hands fluttering over the map.

“We’ll find a hotel when we reach Saint Remy, and should probably rest for the night… get an early start tomorrow.”

He merely turned to gaze out the window, watching as countryside shifted into the outer limits of the nearby city.


	8. The Seed of Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a long wait between updates at time, life being what it is, but I want to assure readers that this is a story that will never be abandoned. It's simply one that has lurked within for so long, and has to be told. Thanks for your continued support.

The scent that curled around her was that of early springtime, fighting to break through the chill that otherwise pervaded the late afternoon surrounds. It was whimsical and light, like the barely there memory of a song that whispers in the mind long after it was heard. It sang of optimism to Hermione, as her hurried feet slowed to take in the gentle bustle of the main square in the old town of Saint Remy de Provence. That sense of innocence, of unknowing, was so at odds with her purpose for being there that it struck her somewhere within. It made her wonder just how much of the darkness that had lingered so very close to the small Provençal town had left its mark, if any.

The faint laughter of children and the low thrum of conversation rose around her. Artists sat before easels were dotted across the square, with nimble fingers that painted in whirling colourful strokes. A bouquet of late afternoon delight wafted around, the smell of freshly baked goods and newly bloomed flowers. It was a feast for the senses, one she wished she had the time to revel in, but she was not here for quiet pleasures.

With some reluctance she glanced away from the stirring scene, perusing the map gripped firmly in her hands. She scanned the stone buildings that lined the Rue Carnot, seeking the narrow street that would lead her to the town’s small library. As with many European towns and cities, the street signs left something to be desired.

Hermione was conscious of each moment it took to find her way. Despite her words to Malfoy on approaching their destination, they had made good time, though the day had stretched in a seemingly endless fashion since she first awoke in her home that morning. Her suggestion that she make use of the remainder of the day to seek out what she could had not been well received. More particularly as she had emphasised the need for him to remain hidden.

The late afternoon sun had been an alluring beacon to more than just herself. She knew that he was just as restless, full of energy and questions. But he had remained at the hotel, secreted away in the room they had managed to secure, while she ventured to the library in search of anything that could be learned. They were presently in the heart of a cluster of towns and villages, many of which had been subject to some measure of the horrors that had taken place in decades past. And at the centre lay L’oubli, the small Wizarding village, in which the seemingly abandoned Malfoy estate lay in wait.

While she knew that there would be nothing to find here, in this muggle town, about that place, she felt sure that there was something to learn. After all, her research had highlighted the disappearance of muggles, incidents of torture, that littered the communities surrounding. Saint Remy was as good a place to start as any. And perhaps, more important a motivation, had been the need to escape Malfoy’s prowling presence in that small hotel room. 

Distracted as she was with such thoughts, she almost missed the barely visible turn down a narrow cobblestone path that was sandwiched between closely bunched buildings of glossy sandstone, and accessible only by foot. The receptionist at the small mid-range hotel had been happy to provide directions to Hermione, in addition to a host of other tourist insights. The town had once housed the acclaimed muggle painter, Van Gogh, in a psychiatric facility here, and it was from his room in that establishment that he painted Starry Night while gazing out the window. 

Hermione found the story to be a touch morbid, but she knew that there was fascination to be found in the dark and mysterious nuances that made up a town’s history. The painter himself was clearly celebrated, for she had noted many reproductions of that dark and swirling image hanging in shop windows as she strolled the narrow streets.

Finally, she spied a small sign hanging over a doorway. Bibliothèque. The lilting letters called her forward in a breathless hurry, and a tiny bell sounded as she ventured inside the near empty building. Although it bore no resemblance to the dark and twisty aisles that lined the Ministry library, she found a similar soothing air whenever she entered a place of learning. Behind the front desk stood a much older woman— Eliza, according to her name tag—who peered at her through reading glasses and gestured for Hermione to approach.

“Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” she said, her voice warm, her smile welcoming.

“Bonjour,” Hermione smiled back, “Parlez-vous—”

“Ah. English, I presume?”

Hermione smiled, her lips tilting in awkward self-deprecation. “That obvious?”

Eliza winked and tapped her ear. “I’ve been here near 30 years, and though these are getting on a bit, they can still detect the mother tongue. Now, my dear, how can I help you?”

Hermione grinned. “Well… it’s an odd request, I’ll admit. I’m actually here doing research for a book I’m writing. It’s a study of obscure unsolved murders throughout Europe.”

“I see! Well, I won’t deny your subject matter is a bit... dark, but then the town’s always had a rather colourful history.” She pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “You’ve certainly come to the right place in any case. Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

Hermione, feeling no small sense of gratitude at the woman’s eagerness to assist, decided she would take all the help she could get. “Yes, actually, I’m interested in a spree running from the late 40s to the early 50s. I believe there were a number of… gruesome incidents in the region. Whatever I can find during that period in particular.”

The woman tapped away on her keyboard, nodding to herself. “A well recorded period, actually. While the crime rate is very low these days, the area certainly had its fair share of unsolved crimes reaching quite far back.”

Hermione felt that kernel within, a researcher’s equivalent to a bloodhound on the trail, blooming with excitement. “Actually, I’m also interested in any connection there might be to the name Desmarais.”

The woman looked at her sharply. “Well, you’d best come with me then.”

Hermione’s heart beat in an odd rhythm as she followed Eliza’s steady gait further into the library.

“Most of the historical books about the region tend to speak more to the Roman ruins, the agriculture and, of course, the famous residents. Nostradamus was born here, you know?”

Quite a colourful history, indeed, Hermione thought. 

“Anyway, we do record all copies of articles from the local papers—dates all the way back. Of course, it’s all about technology these days, so you can review them on microfiche in the back room.”

Hermione tried not to look too bewildered, but continued to follow the woman, who seemed now to be talking almost to herself.

“A disturbing story indeed. The Desmarais murders were well before I lived here of course, but all the locals know the story. Though there was never any suggestion that it was connected to the rest. I suppose that’s what you want to find out?”

Hermione, Muggle-born though she was, had no idea what microfiche was, but based on the whispered mutterings of her companion, it certainly sounded promising.

*

Almost two hours had passed by the time Hermione approached the hotel room. Her mind was racing and her shoulder bag bulging at the seams with photocopied documents, records from the articles and books that Eliza had managed to locate. The woman had been a treasure trove of information.

Fumbling with the key, she finally pushed the door open, noting the darkness within. Swallowing, she entered the room and turned to close the door behind her, one hand reaching for the light switch. Her hand had barely brushed the wood when it slammed before her, and in a breath she found herself pressed flatly against it. A solid and unyielding weight wedged against her, spearing her in place. Her breath caught as the tip of a wand grazed her throat in an almost tender caress.

Her blood simmered and her heart hammered, as she fought to slow her breath and turn her head. “Malfoy?” she breathed, her voice catching. 

Warm breath tickled her ear, an insidious shiver licking its way down her spine. “We need to work on your survival instincts, Granger. You really should be more careful.”

Only Malfoy, her brain told her, and yet perhaps there was more to fear in that. He stepped back then, slowly peeling his parts from hers, and she whirled around to face him. The imprint of his body against hers still searing through fabric and flesh.

“Noted,” she murmured, fingers brushing her throat where the wand had kissed her skin. “An extreme lesson, I think.”

He raised a brow, only part of his face visible in the darkened room. It was a stirring sight, at once sinister and alluring. He twirled his wand between nimble fingers. “I’ve been stuck in this room for hours and I’m feeling… agitated.”

She narrowed her eyes, before reaching back to flick on the lights, blinking as the yellow overhead pushed against her vision. “I was in the library, actually and—”

He snorted derisively.

“ _ And _ it was time well spent. What, exactly, did you accomplished in my absence?” It was a low blow, she knew, because she couldn’t really blame him for being a bit stir crazy, but given what she had discovered, he couldn’t very well be spotted strolling down the streets of this town.

His jaw ticked in irritation, and he gestured for her to continue. Her pulse now settled back to a healthy thrum, Hermione scooted around him and dumped the contents of her shoulder bag onto the nearest of the twin beds that lined the back wall. Malfoy’s gaze scanned the pile of paper. 

“We came to the right place. I’ve got copies of everything that could be useful… but most importantly, I know what the connection to Desmarais is.” His gaze snapped up. “Or part of it at least.”

She shuffled through the articles and handed him one. “In 1952 a family by the name of Desmarais were killed in their home, just on the outskirts of this town. Can you believe our luck? That we—”

He made an irritated noise, his eyes scanning the document in his hands.

“Anyway,” she hastened to continue. “Three people were killed. A man, his wife and their youngest daughter—she was only 14. There were signs of torture, though no purple markings. The house was ransacked and they couldn’t determine cause of death. It wasn’t mentioned in the report from the French Ministry, so I guess the Wizarding authorities never linked it to the other cases because of the lack of markings. Of course, I’m just assuming they were a Wizarding family given that your father mentioned them.”

“Avada Kedavra, I presume,” he said.

“Right, but what’s more interesting is that they never found the eldest daughter, Agathe Desmarais. She was 17. Her body wasn’t at the house and hasn’t been seen since. Police listed her as the main suspect as a result.”

“We know better. Or it certainly seems so.” Pale fingers rubbed his jaw, a mark of contemplation. “The ransacking and torture suggest the culprit was searching for something, seeking answers. The amulet?”

“My thoughts exactly. This all takes place shortly after the last known murder involving the amulet. It’s also the only case where someone was targeted in their home. So either Agathe somehow found the amulet and fled. Or she hid it somewhere and then was later tracked down. Either way, I’m betting she’s the link.”

“Did you find out more about the family? About how she might have encountered Abraxas?”

“Not really. There’s a fair amount of speculation of course, but by all accounts they were quiet, private. Not surprising if they were a Wizarding family living in a muggle town.”

He dragged restless fingers through the pale strands of his hair. “We’ll have to comb through these but that’s probably all we’ll get out of the muggle papers at this point. Someone in L’oubli may know more.”

“Well actually, Eliza—the librarian—traced cases of torture in the region dating back a further 50 or so years. It’s all documented here,” she said, gesturing to the various sheets of pristine white paper. “It could go further back than that… hard to know.”

He blanched at the unspoken suggestion.

Sighing, she continued. “You’re right though, we need to go to L’oubli and the old house. See if we can find out more about your grandfather and any connection he might have had to Agathe Desmarais.”

He didn’t say anything immediately, as his eyes traced the article she had handed to him. She watched him follow the lines of her face, Agathe’s, in an unmoving picture, stood beside her family. Hermione had stared at it herself, wondering what the pretty dark-haired girl with the secretive smile could have known, might have seen. 

He was silent for a beat. “My father wasn’t even born in 1952. Whatever it is he was hiding, it must be pretty bad for this to be his secret too.”

A secret that resulted in his mother’s death.

Silence weaved a spell within the room, heavy and dense as they both pondered the repercussions, the possible discoveries to be made. There was a seemingly unending web of questions and answers to be found here, and Hermione felt certain they were on the cusp of something tangible. Yet that insidious thing, doubt, still nagged within—a cloying fear that all they would find at the end of the tether was yet more questions.

Hermione felt weary after the long drive, from sitting hunched over a computer at the library. It was a bone deep sort of physical exhaustion, and yet her mind itself burned with a spark that had been lit, a hunger to know more. It was fruitless to push herself too far tonight though. What she really needed now was a shower, some food and, if at all possible, to sleep.

She glanced over to Malfoy, whose gaze seemed far away as his hands flicked between the papers before him. She leaned over for the room service menu, barely scanning its contents before picking up the hotel phone.

“What do you want?” she asked, passing him the menu as she waited for someone to pick up the line.

“What I want certainly won’t be on this,” he gestured to the menu. He flicked his eyes over it, lip curling. “But I’ll settle for whatever it is you’re getting.”

After chatting to the desk, she hung up and turned to him, her expression sobering. “I’m going to freshen up now. I’ll be quick but don’t—”

“Answer the door,” he said dryly. “You seem to forget that the only reason I’m here right now is because  _ I _ came to  _ you _ . I know how to survive, Granger. I’ve been doing it for years.”

She stood and grabbed her carry bag, moving toward the bathroom. “I haven’t forgotten.”

Closing the door behind her, she expelled all the air that seemed to be constantly stored within, in one ragged gust. She cast a silencing charm on the room to disguise her movements, and placed her bag on the counter. Splashing cold water on her cheeks, she glanced with scrutiny at her reflection. It was perverse, she supposed, that her cheeks were so flushed and her eyes sharp and bright. Perhaps she revelled in the pursuit of answers when the stakes were highest, because she felt she could see more of herself today beneath the fog that had lingered for years.

It was strange to think that only that morning they had left London and everything happening there to embark on this pursuit, that she was here sharing this small space with Malfoy. Her friends, oblivious though they were, would never understand. Somehow though, the guilt that had been a poison lurking in her blood didn’t burn quite so fiercely now, when she was far away. And perhaps that made this situation more dangerous, for how removed she felt from the real world, her world. In this small room in southern France it felt as though she wasn’t answerable for her actions. It meant that the need to remain sharp, alert, was all the more essential. For though a significant part of her acknowledged the need to fear Malfoy, it was not in the way they would expect. She feared herself around him more than anything, and that was what worried her most. 

Seeing him slip through these hours, a medley of simple moments and mundane things, it showed that he was just a man. A complex one perhaps, but made of blood and bone, of poor choices and agony. No less real than those who came before him, no matter the shadowy place in which she’d stored her thoughts of him, a vision created from half truths and secrets kept. That realisation was all the more terrifying, for it gave him power over her whether he knew it or not. Much more than the ghost of his memory had ever held. 

She knew she was drawn to him, through an inexplicable link that wouldn’t give, like a restless moth trying feebly to fight the lure of a light that called it to its death. He was more than terrible history, more than the seemingly awful sum of his parts. He’d shown her, unconsciously perhaps, with occasional glimpses of the murky within, gifted moments witnessing his fears, his vulnerabilities. She wondered if he had ever given anyone that much. But as she continued to sift through the layers of him, to glimpse the tangible mess within, the need to know more burned brighter still.

She wanted those answers as acutely as the ones they sought together.

  
  


*

Hermione shuffled out of the bathroom, her hair falling in damp curls down her shoulders, clad in a modest T-shirt and black leggings. The room was warm, the steam from the bathroom still clinging to her, and the burr of the heating system a constant melody.

Still she felt the sweeping bloom of heat rise further up her neck as she glanced toward Malfoy. Her effects were clenched in her hands, and yet she wanted fiercely to use them as a shield against the weight of his stare. He was reclined on the nearest bed, papers strewn around him but his eyes on her. She felt him track the flush that crept higher as that mercurial gaze moved from her legs to her face and all between. Seeing everything, down to the fine droplets of water still clinging to her lashes.

It was a fraught moment, one where she felt laid open to him, vulnerable and unable to move. His lips parted a fraction, as though to speak and she watched the movement of his throat with anticipation before he swallowed back the elusive words.

Three rapid knocks on the door startled her, and she locked away those thoughts, dropped her bag and grabbed her purse. Pulling open the door, she smiled at the young man, barely of age, who held out a tray before her. Before he could step a foot in the room, she grabbed the tray—balancing precariously—and all but threw the money at him.

“Merci beaucoup,” she called before closing the door hurriedly.

She turned around to find Malfoy suddenly before her, reaching for the tray.

“Before you ask, I was hiding behind the door.”

She simply nodded, distracted by the brush of fingers as he took the weight of the tray.

“Hungry?” she murmured, glancing at him.

His face was still, but his gaze flicked from her mouth to her eyes. “Quite,” he murmured, his words barely more than a breath, as his mouth kicked up at the side.

*

The tick of the clock as each hand passed another second seemed to reverberate through the very centre of her being. Taunting her with minutes and hours lost to her constantly whirring thoughts. She wasn’t sure why she had woken so soon after sleep had final taken her, but the immediate anxiety of finding the room empty had her almost out of her mind with worry. Possibilities, frightful ones even, flittered through her vision like a dream uncontrolled by her now conscious mind.

She was surprised she had fallen asleep in the first place. The tension in the room was as heavy as a blanket last night, cloaking her in its weight. She’d lain there in the dark listening to the cadence of his breath, the memory of that searing gaze burning through closed eyes. Knowledge that he lay there, mere metres away, had made it impossible. They had been through a full spectrum of situations, the two of them. War and secrets, stolen moments. She had felt her atoms seep into his, firing messages through them both, so that she had felt fleetingly like they were part of some great impossible whole. A terrible yet wildly alluring thing. Yet nothing had felt more criminally intimate than sleeping in this small shared space. Another line crossed, she supposed.

Yet to wake to a silent room, bereft of his presence, had caused her to jolt straight out of the bed, eyes scanning the room for clues to his whereabouts. His possessions were still there, all of their notes sat neatly on the desk where she had left them last night. But he was gone. Her first thought, that he had left for good, had her dissolving back into that shadowy place of before, where he was never to be seen again. It left her chest seizing as she tried to draw breath. A dangerous response, she knew.

But as the clock ticked on, fear gave way to realisation, to certainty of his return, and then to anger. So she sat, straight backed on the bed, wand gripped firmly, waiting. An hour or perhaps only a minute later the door swung open, and he strolled in, hair darkened by some charm, features just slightly different to those she knew so well, those that had stayed with her for so long. Even as they shifted and moved in accordance with his wand and whispered words, back into that familiar visage, she felt that long absent simmer of anger within take root and enflame, a burning visceral thing within.

“Where have you been…” the words were ragged, bitten things that fell from her lips.

He stood before her now, a paper bag held carelessly between nimble fingers. “Breakfast is served.” His lips curled in distaste as he held up the bag, and dropped her purse on the desk.

There was a smug turn to his expression, faintly familiar, which made her want to tear through him for making her wonder needlessly. She paused in her fury to take a breath at the realisation that baiting her was probably his goal, or part of it. A once favoured pastime.

She schooled her voice into something softer, calmer. “You could have been recognised. You could have—”

His gaze raked over her face, assessing. “You were worried.”

She stood then, dispensing with the calm, and approached him. It was ridiculous she knew, an overreaction, and yet she couldn’t stem the flow of it itching beneath her skin. She moved forward and he tracked her steps like a hunter with its prey. She was scant inches from him, staring up, ready to claw at him. Her hands pushed against the wall of him, and she hated how he seemed to relish the result of his game. He clamped down on that hand, pressed it firmly against his chest over layers of wool and cotton.

“It’s not so nice to be the one left behind, is it?”

“You inconsiderate arse!” she seethed. “You know what I’ve risked to be here, to help  _ you _ , and yet you jeopardise that, for what?”

He shrugged, but his expression held none of the nonchalance of that gesture. His eyes held hers.

“I think I’ve made my point. As it happens I managed fine with your ridiculous paper money and there were no troublesome incidents. Can’t speak for the quality of the food, however.”

She still felt an unsettled pit within, and she couldn’t reconcile where the surge of emotion had come from, except that it reflected how heightened everything felt in this space. She grabbed the proffered package from him, and turned away.

“Eat quickly,” he said. “I want us out of here in 10.”

“I’ll be ready.”

They ate in silence, and Hermione tried not to let the seed within take root. Perhaps she had overreacted, but not without good cause. He knew the risks as well, if not better, than she did, and his frustration was not justification for his stunt. She stewed on this a moment longer, before filing it away, a problem for later. There were much greater considerations ahead of them.

Last night they had decided to leave the car behind and Apparate as close to the property as possible. Their first objective was to explore the abandoned Malfoy estate, and then see what they could find in the village itself. 

Hermione dusted crumbs from her fingers, and glanced over to Malfoy, who stood nearby, scanning the hand drawn map of L’oubli.

She grabbed her bag, slipping it over her shoulder, before she approached him, hand held aloft, eyes guarded. “Ready?”

His hand moved over hers, his thumb resting against her pulse point, and she knew he could feel the erratic and exposing thrum, feared the stories he might read from that telling rhythm. He said nothing, but the whirling of space around them was answer enough.

Their feet sank into moss-covered stones and mulched leaves of varying shades, a carpet of untouched and forgotten land that stretched around them. Instinctively she clenched her fingers, still entwined with his, before pulling her hand free and stuffing it in her pocket. He made no comment as he did the same. They stood there silently for a moment, a foot apart, gazing at the dense myriad of once green and ochre trees—a wood both deep and dark—that seemed to stretch around the perimeter of the property. There was nothing much to be seen in any other direction, and they knew from looking at maps that the small Wizarding village lay some 15 minutes on foot in the direction behind them. 

For all intents and purposes, the property was isolated, with only trees and the wind to hear the sounds that came from within. That thought caused a tiny tremor across the line of her shoulders. They had to venture through, to find out what secrets this place held, for they were certain it had stories to tell, but she did not relish the thought. 

Both seeming to reach some silent agreement to proceed, they pushed on leaden feet towards the small opening almost entirely obscured by the overgrown beech trees. Stepping through the thicket, they had to duck and swerve on occasion to avoid the gnarled branches that seemed to reach out and beckon. She shivered again, this time from both the dank cold that pressed upon her, and the absolute certainty she felt that something horrible had happened in this place. 

She glanced at Malfoy, feeling no small sense of relief to have him standing close, despite her anger that morning. His gaze stayed firmly ahead, watching the way through those menacing and ancient guardians. The only mark of his tension was evident in the tight grip he held on his wand now, like her own, held before him, as though to ward off whatever evil lay in wait. Still they walked on, the early morning sunlight a memory as it failed to trickle through the dense foliage.

“Not very welcoming, is it?” she murmured.

“My grandfather who, if we’re correct, was the last one to have been here, well he was known to be… eccentric.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?” she asked sharply.

He cut her a quick look in response but said nothing. She was still watching him when he paused in step and nodded his head forward. She glanced up, noting how the path widened just ahead. Her stomach roiled in rebellion as she took in the vast black gates that had appeared before them. Gnarled black iron was rusted in the parts that had not been smothered by now dead vines. It made her think of death, this place, as though some unknown disease had once thrived here and seeped through the ground underfoot, forever marking its presence. It was far more ominous than Malfoy Manor, filled with its hollow rooms and ghosts they could not see.

“It certainly would have kept the villagers away,” he muttered as they approached the gate, suddenly reaching to pull her flush against his side in what seemed like an unconscious motion. 

She glanced at him, still somewhat unaccustomed to the physical nature of him, which had seemed so absent in their earlier encounters. 

His gaze was shadowed. “Stay close. We don’t know what’s beyond these gates, but we do know that my grandfather was not overly fond of…” he glanced at her, “Muggle-borns.”

She blanched and nodded. Reaching out, his hand grazed the static energy that shimmered across the gates, before iron and vine both dissolved beneath his touch. Unlike at Malfoy Manor, the walk to the once stately house was not set as far back from the gates. The trees were shield enough, she supposed, for they appeared to guard the house fiercely, as though they had eyes that tracked her every step. Every breath in this place felt wrong, somehow forced—that knowledge settled within her bones, the desire to turn back felt like a fire in her limbs.

The house rose into view amid an opening in the wood around them, a narrow ring that looked to circle the whole way around. It was neo-gothic, or Victorian in style, from her best guess. Her gaze traced the steeply pitched, cross-gabled roofline and arched windows, the two high turrets that rose up on either side. It harked back to the most eery of gothic architecture for which France was so famed. Its sinister and now dilapidated appearance was appropriate, she supposed, given how it seemed to loom and brood over them. A living thing, with a pulsing ugly history.

Her voice was barely a whisper, but the dank silence made it echo around her. “The house is likely in a bad way, so we’ll need to watch our steps for loose stairs or cracked flooring.”

“Among other things.”

She didn’t like to think about that possibility. Pushing the thought aside she stayed close to Malfoy as they climbed the three steps to the door, bracketed by ornate black pillars. He reached forward and pushed against the heavy door. Though its groan rent the air around them, it shifted open.

“No need for locking charms… can’t imagine many unexpected visitors dropping by,” he said as looked at her. Quips aside, she could see the tension lining his features.

With a muttered  _ lumos _ , the light from their wands burst in the darkness. Their eyes traced the once grand entrance, complete with scalloped ceilings and ornate archways. It might have been beautiful once, in that overly theatrical way that period homes could be, but now it was in ruin. Peeled wallpaper lined the walls, and the flooring was stained—she didn’t want to speculate on the cause—while fabric lay strewn about. Perhaps from the once fine chaise lounges that could be seen through one of the doorways, now torn and overturned, or the doubtless expensive rugs that would have lined the floors. They picked their way through rooms, coughing at dust and stale air that coated their tongues and poisoned their lungs, taking in the carnage and ruin that lay before them. 

“Who did this?” she murmured, eyes tracking the damage.

“There’s neglect… but this place looks like it’s been torn apart. Abraxas, maybe, in a rage. Or someone else…”

Hermione could feel the weight of a malignant history deep in her bones. They had suspected it… but it was palpable, a bone numbing feeling that seemed to lock her in place. Whatever thoughts she had about his own family home in Wiltshire, the coldness and austerity she found there, this was a different thing altogether. She couldn’t help but think about his ancestors, beyond his grandfather, and the kinds of people they had been. She knew that thought occurred to him as well, that he might find an even greater level of horror at what they learned. What it might mean for him.

For now, they continued to pick through rooms, looking for anything of note. Making their way up the stairs, they ascended slowly, cautious with each footstep. Many of the rooms were empty, windows boarded up, and sheets covering furniture. The ply of dust upon them was so thick, she assumed they had been this way for far longer than the house had been vacant. Eventually Malfoy tugged at her wrist, gesturing toward the next wing, where an ornate door had all but been cleaved from its hinges. If the place had indeed been ransacked, then this section of the house must have been of particular interest.

It comprised three grand rooms, a parlour from which stemmed a bedroom and study, and based on the extravagance still evident she assumed this had once been the master wing. Anticipation tickled the base of her spine as they step through the doorway. The destruction had been fueled by something fierce, a personal reign of terror clear in the broken tables and smashed ornaments that littered the sitting room.

They went into the bedroom first, though she felt sure that the study was more likely to reveal something noteworthy. Despite the oppressive and cloying atmosphere in the house, they had yet to find anything that could help them. She scanned the enormous four poster bed, trying to imagine how it might once have looked. Finding nothing new she ventured back toward the parlour before she realised that Malfoy had not followed.

“Malfoy,” she whispered, her voice rough. But he paid her no attention. Instead he was gazing speculatively at a large painting which hung on the wall opposite the bed. It was a cruel landscape, dark and obscure, which seemed to sit just slightly off kilter. While a strange choice for one’s sleeping quarters, she hadn’t thought there was anything particularly interesting about it.  

When he finally spoke, his voice was contemplative, but she caught the note of intrigue there. “My father had a painting in my parents’ bed chamber. A field of poppies, if you’d believe. I assume that was my mother’s choice, of course… but it wasn’t the painting that was important.”

Hermione watched as he moved forward, fingers gripping the edge of the frame and hauling it off the small hooks that held it in place.

He glanced at her, something burning in his eyes. “It was what they hid behind it that counted.” He gestured to a small enclave, now revealed. “Another Malfoy family trick, it seems.”

She hurried forward, heart tripping, as she watched him fish out a heavy iron key. His fingers traced the ornate detail before dropping it in her outstretched palm.

She tested the weight, before a smile curved the edge of her mouth. “Now  _ this _ is interesting,” she said. “But where does it lead…”

He tipped one shoulder up, holding her gaze as he did. “A good question. Let’s find out.”

*

An hour had passed since their discovery, and they hadn’t found any locks to open, any secrets to unravel. Hermione was nearing frustration, and certainly keen to get as far away from the foreboding presence of the property as she could. They had scoured room after room, retracing their steps with a fervent sort of excitement, the promise discovery tangible.

“It could be a key to anywhere,” she said finally. “We have no reason to be sure we’re even looking in the right place.”

“Hmm,” he said in response, thoughts seeming to cling to something. “Only, I don’t think we have checked the whole estate.” His hand pressed against the nape of his neck, and she knew instinctively from his tone that she would not like what he had to say next. 

“Just tell me, Malfoy.” 

“The dungeons,” he said softly. “We haven’t found them yet.”

Her stomach dropped like a stone at the thought, at his certainty that they would be on the property. Perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised, and yet the thought curdled her stomach. “Are there dungeons at Malfoy Manor?” Her tone was careful, her words heavy.

His head bobbed once, a brief nod that filled her with dread. Given the seeming proclivities of his grandfather, she supposed he was right to assume they should find them here as well. 

“Let’s check the grounds,” he said finally, steering them to a door at the rear of the house, which they had passed earlier. Turning the handle, he glanced back at her and held it open. They stepped out onto a raised porch that lead to yet more woods. The trees were sparser at the back of the house, which was something of a relief, for she did not relish the thought of trekking through them for hours on a fruitless mission.

He trudged slightly ahead of her, both of them swivelling from side to side to scan the area, before she spotted a small stone outhouse peeking through a particularly dense thicket of trees. Dispensing with their previously slow pace, they both hurried forward. The structure was barely the size of a shed, built of heavy grey stone that differed to that of the main house. It was hard to know whether it predated the building, or was a later addition.  But it was the iron cast door set into the stone that drew her attention. Hermione held up the key, certain it was a fit. Malfoy plucked the key from her fingers, and shifted in front of her, before pushing it through the heavy lock. He glanced back at her when the key turned, yielding a satisfying click.

Before he could push the door open, she grabbed his arm, stilling him. “Can you feel that?” The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and the sense of  _ wrongness _ felt more potent than ever.

He nodded. “I don’t know what we’re going to find down there, but… wands out.”

The room beyond was nothing but empty space, save for the archway cut through the stone, which hovered over a staircase that led down into an impenetrable darkness. Lighting their wands once more, Malfoy went first, each step a burden for them both as they descended stairs that creaked with each football. The dungeons, she thought, the very pit of an evil that had stained this estate and lingered.

As they reached the bottom, Hermione gagged at the stench of decay and stale air that had not shifted in a very long time. Down in these depths every surface was stone blanketed in dirt and grime. They raised their wands higher and peered ahead through the stillness. Barely the sound of their own breaths could be heard at first, and then a more disturbing noise interrupted. Scratching. The faint sound of something against stone. They both tensed, absolute silence steeling their bodies.

It continued, a horrible melody from the darkness, and they followed it, slowly, reluctantly. The sound stopped abruptly as they reached the first cell. She took a breath as she glanced through heavy iron bars, ducking beneath Malfoy’s wand held high overhead, to peer more closely. It was empty, and though death was a presence of its own, there was no sign of bodies, remnants of the people who had been here. 

On the floor, in a dark corner of the small cell she spied a heavy set of iron manacles, connected to a chain that seemed to be built into the wall. Nausea was a storm within her as she stared at the small space, thoughts in turmoil. Malfoy nudged her then, and pointed higher to the wall above the chains. Grooves lined the stone, scratch marks. She couldn’t breathe as her eyes traced the evidence of a desperation so acute it had cleaved through stone.

She felt the barest weight on her spine. His hand, a strangely reassuring thing. They moved on, and her limbs felt sluggish with her reluctance. The rest of the cells were the same, and she felt the weight of each step like a burden as they pushed further through the dark chamber. At the end was a door with another lock, but this time the key sat nestled in its grip.

Malfoy pushed the door open and stepped in, his body rigid. When he glanced back at her the look of undisguised horror on his usually stoic face caused her knees to buckle. He cast his wand higher as they moved in. It took a moment for her thoughts to assemble, to digest what appeared to be some sort of workshop. Her eyes fell on an array of tables, the same manacles from the cells linked through the wood. But it was the other items that caught her attention, sinister looking contraptions. Torture devices, she realised with horror.

They were silent as they took in the room, papers and torn books littering the floor. She didn’t know how long they stood there, wordlessly staring at the contents of the room. Eventually Malfoy glanced down at her, his arm nudging her side to get her attention. He opened his mouth to say something, but paused, his gaze suddenly shifting over her shoulder, his arm bracing her against him.

A breath, a rasp. That’s what she heard before she turned around. Her terror in that split second was suffocating, her blood like acid fizzing in her veins. Malfoy’s grip on her was firm, yet she turned to look over her shoulder. It was a girl, she thought at first, her gaze hollow and fixed. Her skin was as white as her dress must once have been, before blood and grime had marred it.

Her translucent appearance flickered briefly. A ghost, Hermione’s thoughts whispered, as she adjusted in Malfoy’s grip to face the spectre fully. There were marks on her neck beneath the tangled hair, broken skin and chipped nails stained with her own blood. The girl, undoubtedly one of many victims, was still trapped in this horrible place. Hermione’s throat closed.

She glanced back at her face, lips parted to speak, when she noted that the girl’s intense gaze was fixed firmly on Malfoy.

“Who are you?” Hermione croaked, feeling Malfoy’s grip on her tighten further. “Tell us.”

The ghost’s gaze shifted to Hermione briefly, before finding Malfoy once more. Her stare held, burning. Her fingers twitched, clawing at the air that siphoned through them, no longer finding stone and blood.

Hermione tried again. “It’s not him, them… he’s someone else.” She swallowed, her mouth dry. “He wants—we want… to help. Please.”

The girl’s scratching slowed, her gaze still pinned to Malfoy. Fingers shifted to her throat, and Hermione realised then that she couldn’t speak. Another scar upon her body. Hermione wondered how many more they could not see.

The ghost flickered and disappeared, and Hermione whirled around to look at Malfoy, her gaze raking over his features. His shock mirrored hers, but it was more than that.  _ It’s in the blood _ , those whispered words. She could see the mantra in his eyes as they seared into her. And then she caught sight of the girl once more, now shimmering in a dark corner on the far side of the room. Her restless finger pointed to a small loose stone in the wall, and when Hermione glanced back at her face, her solemn gaze seemed to say  _ yes _ .

“Malfoy,” she nudged him and gestured behind to the girl. He seemed to break from his reverie then and made to stop Hermione from approaching.

She squeezed his arm, a whispered reassurance dropping from her lips. His jaw clenched, a flicker of muscle, as he stared from her to the ghost before releasing his grip. Hermione approached slowly, and the girl seemed to shrink away, yet her gaze remained firmly on the stone. Hermione crouched low, the fine hair on the back of her neck raised, exposed in this terrible place. But Malfoy was watching.

She pulled the stone free, lifted her wand and peered into the gap in the wall. Nestled in the small space were scrolls of parchment, bundles of them. Some appeared dank with mildew, rotten from moisture and time. But others appeared to still be reasonable condition. She slid a glance to the girl, only to find that she was no longer there.  They didn’t spare a breath as they gathered the bundles, and hurried out of the chamber and back up the stairs. The haunting melody of fingers on stone followed each step. A sound she felt sure would find her even in her dreams.

They fled the confines of the property immediately. And it wasn’t until they burst back into the hotel room that Hermione felt the weight shift slightly from her chest. But her skin, it was tainted with that stain of death, and the taste still coated her tongue.  While she trembled with the cocktail of relief and adrenaline still pulsing through her, Malfoy strode for the bathroom without a backward glance. The door rattled as it slammed behind him. And though she couldn’t hear the sounds from within, he didn’t venture out for several hours.


End file.
